Structural and Cultural Determinants of Adult Homicide in Developed Countries: Age and Gender-Specific Rates, 1955–1989

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Abstract
Following a review of the literature on cross-national adult homicide rates we develop the first empirical study of 1955–1989 age-standardized and age-specific rates for male and female victims in 21 developed countries. We add Easterlin's relative cohort size to standard measures of social and economic structures that may increase conflict among individuals and groups within nations. We also include the lagged ratio of female / male enrollment in tertiary education with divorce rates as a second indicator of family and sex role conflict. A measure of the rate of rape expands past indicators of the culture of violence. The lagged errors of prediction are included to reduce spurious results that can be caused by measurement and specification error. The resulting 16 equations are robust and suggest that research examining the mechanisms that link structural predictors to homicide rates may well be worth the effort.