Income inequality,poverty and crime across nations

We examine the relationship between income inequality, poverty, and different types of crime. Our results are consistent with recent research in showing that inequality is unrelated to homicide rates when poverty is controlled. In our multi‐level analyses of the International Crime Victimization Survey we find that inequality is unrelated to assault, robbery, burglary, and theft when poverty is controlled. We argue that there are also theoretical reasons to doubt that the level of income inequality of a country affects the likelihood of criminal behaviour.     

The Infrequency of Family Violence

We examined the frequency of domestic violence and verbal altercations relative to the level of domestic conflict using survey data from the United States and Korea. We found evidence that individuals are generally less likely to use violence during an altercation if the antagonist is a family member than if the antagonist is a stranger. People apparently have stronger inhibitions about hitting family members than about hitting strangers, and, as a result, domestic violence is infrequent relative to the level of domestic conflict. In addition, verbal altercations are more likely to occur in conflicts with partners and children than in conflicts involving strangers, suggesting that the relaxation of rules of politeness contributes to the expression of grievances and ultimately the use of violence in these relationships.     

On estimating the social costs of national economic policy: A critical examination of the Brenner study

This is a critique of Brenner's attempt to link morbidity and mortality to inflation, per capita income and unemployment. Several specific defects and recommendations are cited.     

Measuring Religious Identities in Surveys

The purpose of this article is to acquaint the broader publicopinion research audience with what has been a salient issuewithin the community of scholars of religion. We address thequestion of how best to conceptualize and measure religiousidentities in research on contemporary American society. Weconsider the main approaches to the measurement of religiousidentification with regard to their backgrounds, their assumptionsabout the importance of understanding religious identities inhistorically relevant terms, and the practical considerationsof survey measurement. Using data from the General Social Survey,particularly recent innovative efforts to obtain informationon subjective association with particular religious traditionsand/or movements (e.g., Pentecostal, fundamentalist, evangelical,mainline, or liberal Protestant), we compare the two main approaches:the traditional "denominational" approach, where religious identitiesare assumed to be associated with religious denominations, andthe subjective approach, where religious identities are assumedto be captured by a set of "nondenominational" reference categorieslinked to particular historical religious traditions or socialmovements. We conclude that both approaches have substantialpredictive validity, and the most effective strategy for futureresearch may be one that uses a combination of approaches, ratherthan one that relies entirely on a single method of measurement.     

The Normative Protection of Women from Violence

The literature on the relationship between violence against women and a norm protecting women (NPW) is reviewed. I suggest that the effects of the NPW are suppressed because violence against women tends to occur in intimate relations and such disputes tend to be kept private. The offsetting effects of NPW and intimacy (or relational distance) are demonstrated in a study of 384 self-reported violent disputes. In support of an NPW effect, I find that disputes are more likely to be reported to the police if an attack on a woman is witnessed by third parties. This gender effect is offset by the fact that disputes between intimates tend to be concealed from the police and from witnesses.     

Standardization of scales in social science research: Breaking the routine

Regression coefficients are generally reported in their original metric or standardized ß's. This paper reviews the shortcoming of both and introduces some flexibility into standardization procedures. The procedures suggested facilitate computation, interpretation, and comparison.     

A dynamic macro social indicator model of changes in marriage, family, and population in the United States: 1947–1974

This paper presents an integrated 21-equation model of how marriage, family, and population conditions, as indexed by macro social indicators, affect each other and are affected by other social, demographic, and economic forces. An opportunity structures theoretical paradigm is applied to the specification of dynamic structural equations for determining changes (both trends and cyclical fluctuations) in marriage formation and dissolution, family and household composition, fertility, mortality, population growth, and population distribution. The equations are estimated on annual national data for the United States during the post-World War II years 1947 to 1972, and then they are used to make conditional forecasts of the values of some of the endogenous variables for 1973 and 1974. It is found that the equations fit the observed data well, lack demonstrable autocorrelation of disturbances, and forecast the 1973 and 1974 values usually with less than 2% error. Strategies are sketched for further refining some of the equations, and it is suggested that this model should be integrated into a larger societal model in order to estimate some of the effects of changes in demographic phenomena on other social conditions.     

Friends’ religiosity and first sex

Researchers have established that individual religiosity influences sexual behavior and that religious support can increase consistency between personal religiosity and behavior. Researchers are less certain, however, of the effect that religious friendship networks have on sexual behavior. In addition, the effects of network characteristics such as density and one’s position in a social network have not been established. This paper uses a network subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the effect of friends’ religiosity on the probability of first sex. We find that friends’ religiosity has an independent influence on adolescent sexual behavior that is similar in magnitude to personal religiosity. We also find evidence that friends’ religiosity has the strongest influence on the sexual behavior of adolescents who are embedded in dense social networks, in which teens’ friends are also friends with one another. These results support the hypothesis that group influences depend on the degree of embeddedness within the network and highlight the importance of studying religion as a property of groups as well as individuals.     

The control motive and marital violence

The role of the control motive in marital violence is examined using data on current and former marriages from the Survey of Violence and Threats of Violence Against Women and Men. The findings indicate no support for the position that husbands engage in more marital violence than wives because they are more controlling. In former marriages, we observe statistical interactions between gender and control: former husbands who were controlling or jealous were particularly likely to be verbally aggressive and to engage in violence. The controlling husbands (present and former), however, are not particularly likely to engage in violence that is frequent, injurious, or unprovoked. The evidence suggests that husband and wives may differ in their methods of control but not their motivation to control.