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Relative Cohort Size and Age-Specific Arrest Rates: A Conditional Interpretation of the Easterlin Effect

NCJ Number
181788
Journal
Criminology Volume: 38 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2000 Pages: 117-136
Author(s)
Jukka Savolainen
Editor(s)
Robert J. Bursik Jr.
Date Published
2000
Length
20 pages
Annotation
The demographic theory formulated by Richard Easterlin (1980) predicts a positive relationship between the relative size of birth cohorts and their rates of criminal offending.
Abstract
Extensive testing of this hypothesis, however, has produced scant support in the literature. Drawing on the emerging conditional interpretation of the Easterlin effect, the author proposes the impact of fertility decline on the criminal behavior of the "Baby Bust" generation may have been suppressed by changes in family structure and racial differences in fertility. Although finding support for this argument, particularly in models explaining property crime, in the final analysis the research underscores the marginal nature of the Easterlin effect as an explanation of criminal behavior. 35 references, 2 tables, and 1 figure