The effect of poverty and social protection on national homicide rates: Direct and moderating effects

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2012.12.005Get rights and content

Abstract

Social protection is the ability of a government to insulate its citizens from the problems associated with poverty and market forces that negatively affect their quality of life. Prior research shows that government policies that provide social protection moderate the influence of inequality on national homicide rates. Recent research, however, reveals a strong association between poverty and national homicide rates. Further, theory and evidence suggest that social protection policies are meant to aid in providing a subsistence level of living, and thus to alleviate the vagaries of poverty not inequality. To this point, however, no studies have examined the potentially moderating effect of social protection on the strength of the association between poverty and homicide rates cross-nationally. We do so in the present study. Employing data for the year 2004 from a sample of 30 nations, we estimate a series of weighted least squares regression models to test three hypotheses: the association between poverty and homicide will remain significant and positive when controlling for social protection, social protection will have a significant negative direct effect on national homicide rates, and social protection will diminish the strength of the poverty–homicide association. The results provided evidence supporting all three hypotheses. We situate our findings in the cross-national empirical literature on social structure and homicide and discuss our results in the theoretical context of social protection.

Highlights

► Social protection is meant alleviate the ills of poverty, not inequality. ► With a sample of 30 nations, we estimate a series of WLS regression models. ► Social protection has a significant negative effect on national homicide rates. ► Social protection diminishes the strength of the poverty–homicide association.

Introduction

Poverty is one of the most consistent predictors of homicide rates in the empirical literature on the structural covariates of violent crime in the United States (Messner and Rosenfeld, 1999, Pridemore, 2002, Sampson and Lauritsen, 1994). After a long absence in the analogous cross-national literature, a small number of recent studies have shown a positive and significant association between poverty and national homicide rates (Paré, 2006, Pridemore, 2008, Pridemore, 2011). Prior to this recent research on poverty, inequality had been the focus of many cross-national studies of homicide (for reviews see LaFree, 1999, Messner and Rosenfeld, 2006). As such, several studies that examined the potential buffering effects of social protection and related phenomena like decommodification (Esping-Andersen, 1990) concentrated on the ability of these constructs to moderate the effects of inequality on national homicide rates (Messner and Rosenfeld, 2006, Pratt and Godsey, 2002, Savolainen, 2000). While empirical results largely support this hypothesis, theoretical questions remain about the inequality-homicide association and exactly what social protection policies are meant to alleviate.

Following the lead of earlier researchers (Conway and Norton, 2002, Paré, 2006, Pridemore, 2008, Pridemore, 2011), we argue that the economic components of policies aimed at social protection, social and economic welfare, and decommodification are directed at and meant to support those living in or near poverty in an attempt to provide at least a subsistence minimum level of living. An indirect consequence of such support may be to reduce inequality, but its direct aim is to decrease the social and economic harms caused by poverty. Therefore, we should not only expect a negative direct effect of social support on homicide rates, but we would expect that the strength of the positive association between poverty and homicide rates will be weaker in nations that offer greater social protection to its most vulnerable citizens. The poverty–homicide association has been tested in only a handful of recent cross-national studies, and the moderating effects of social protection on the association between poverty and homicide have yet to be assessed. Thus, our study (1) adds to the small but growing empirical literature gauging if poverty matters for the variation in cross-national homicide rates and (2) tests for the first time if any poverty–homicide association is moderated by social protection.

Section snippets

Poverty and cross-national homicide rates

Theoretical explanations for an association between poverty and homicide at the cross-national level may be drawn from multiple social structure theories, especially those situated within the anomie tradition. For example, Institutional Anomie Theory (IAT) makes the claim that, taken on its own, poverty cannot independently explain differences in crime rates across nations (Messner and Rosenfeld, 2006). Instead, it could be theorized that high poverty rates are symptoms of institutional

Data

To test the hypotheses, we gathered data for 30 nations. As discussed below, the sample size was limited to those nations for which the key measure of social support was available. Unless otherwise stated below, all data were for the year 2004. Appendix A contains a list of nations employed in the analysis.

Discussion

The focus of most cross-national research on the structural covariates of homicide has been on inequality. As a result, most studies examining the moderating effects of social protection, social welfare, decommodification, and related phenomena have focused on their ability to condition the effects of inequality on national homicide rates. However, a small but growing number of recent cross-national studies have found an association between poverty and homicide net of other structural

Conclusion

This paper had three objectives. The first was to provide another test of the poverty–homicide thesis since this remains relatively new to the cross-national literature. The second objective was to test if social protection has a significant negative association with national homicide rates even when poverty is included in the model. Both of these variables had been shown to be associated with national homicide rates in prior studies. Our goal was not simply provide another test, but to set up

References (47)

  • A. Antonovsky et al.

    Social class and infant mortality

    Social Science and Medicine

    (1977)
  • T.C. Pratt et al.

    Social support and homicide: a cross-national test of an emerging criminological theory

    Journal of Criminal Justice

    (2002)
  • Adema, W., Ladaique, M. 2009. How expensive is the welfare state? Gross and net indicators in the OECD Social...
  • A. Barrientos et al.

    Can social protection tackle chronic poverty?

    The European Journal of Development Research

    (2005)
  • C. Batton et al.

    Decommodification and homicide rates in the 20th-century United States

    Homicide Studies

    (2002)
  • B. Bjerregaard et al.

    A cross-national test of Institutional Anomie Theory: do the strength of other social institutions mediate or moderate the effects of the economy on the rate of crime?

    Western Criminology Review

    (2008)
  • R.J. Bursik

    Social disorganization and theories of crime and delinquency: problems and prospects

    Criminology

    (1988)
  • M.B. Chamlin et al.

    A longitudinal analysis of the welfare-homicide relationship: testing two (nonreductionist) macro-level theories

    Homicide Studies

    (2002)
  • T.I. Conway et al.

    Nets, ropes, ladders and trampolines: the place of social protection within current debates on poverty reduction

    Development and Policy Review

    (2002)
  • F.T. Cullen et al.

    Social support and social reform: a progressive crime control agenda

    Crime and Delinquency

    (1999)
  • E. Currie

    Market, crime and community: toward a mid-range theory of post industrial violence

    Theoretical Criminology

    (1997)
  • J. DeFronzo

    Economic assistance to impoverished Americans

    Criminology

    (1983)
  • S. Devereux

    Can social safety nets reduce chronic poverty?

    Development and Policy Review

    (2002)
  • Devereux, S., 2001. Social Protection for the Poor. IDS Working Paper 142. Brighton,...
  • G. Esping-Andersen

    The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism

    (1990)
  • P. Fajnzylber et al.

    Inequality and violent crime

    Journal of Law and Economics

    (2002)
  • G. Firebaugh et al.

    Does economic growth benefit the masses: Growth, dependence, and welfare in the third world

    American Sociological Review

    (1994)
  • R.S. Frey et al.

    The determinants of infant mortality in less developed world: a cross-sectional test of five theories

    Social Indicators Research

    (2000)
  • R. Gartner et al.

    Gender stratification and the gender gap in homicide victimization

    Social Problems

    (1990)
  • E.A. Hanushek et al.

    Statistical Methods for Social Scientist

    (1977)
  • G. LaFree

    A summary and review of cross-national comparative studies of homicide

  • C. Loftin et al.

    An errors-in-variable model of the effect of poverty on urban homicide rates

    Criminology

    (1985)
  • D. McDowall

    Poverty and homicide in Detroit, 1926–1978

    Violence and Victims

    (1986)
  • We thank Mitch Chamlin and Rick Rosenfeld for their helpful critiques of an earlier draft of this manuscript. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2011 annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology.

    View full text