Are Competitive Materialism and Female Employment Related to International Homicide Rate?

Abstract

The institutional anomie theory is a proposal that states competitive materialism, an intense cultural pressure for economic success at any costs, and increased female employment may be related to a high homicide rate. The current work tested this proposition by utilizing homicide data collected from 45 developed and developing countries. Regression results did not support the proposition. Competitive materialism and female employment were not significantly related to the cross-national variation of homicide rates.

Keywords

homicide competitive materialism female employment institutional anomie theory cross-national study

Introduction

Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) proposed that materialism, or an intense pressure for economic success, may lead people to pursue economic success by any means necessary. “It’s not how you play the game; it’s whether you win or lose” (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2007, p. 69). An excessive emphasis on economic success in a society can prompt its people to perceive other citizens as competitors in pursuit of their economic success. This intense individual competition places people under extreme pressure to disrespect social norms and laws. Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) implied that the institutional culture of individualistic and competitive materialism may vary from one society to another and corresponds to the different distribution of homicide rates across countries. Traditional institutions such as family and school are weakened when competitive materialism is intensified, as the pressure for economic success may lead to devaluation of traditional goals, positions, and roles. In societies with the highest competitive materialism, many females are employed outside their homes, favoring economic goals over parenting (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2007).

Considering social control theory (Hirschi, 1969), Sampson and Laub (1994) suggested that maternal employment is connected to weakened maternal supervision and informal social control, which leaves youths vulnerable to delinquencies. Similarly, Han, Miller, and Waldfogel (2010) contended that mothers’ long hours of employment outside their homes jeopardizes their close relationships with their children, which may contribute to the children’s delinquency and risky behaviors. Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) have made a theoretical argument that maternal employment may be associated with an increased homicide rate in a country as well as with juvenile delinquency. For explanation, Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) argued that the youths in inner cities are not likely to be well supervised because of their mothers’ employment. Without appropriate maternal supervision and control, the youths, who are under the extreme pressure of competitive materialism, attempt to achieve their material goals by selling illegal drugs. The youths’ engagement in such an illicit business makes them vulnerable to gang violence and homicide. Cross-national empirical studies that examined the relationship of homicide rates with the institutional culture of competitive materialism and female employment are scarce. Thus, the current research tested the relationship by using international data.

Theories

Competitive Materialism, Maternal Employment, and Homicide

In their book, Crime and the American Dream, Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) conceived that Merton’s (1968) anomie theory explains macrolevel and individual-level crimes and violence. Unlike Merton’s (1968) emphasis on unequal opportunities for material success among society members, Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) were interested in a broader institutional structure beyond that of simple social stratification. By merging cultural and structural explanations of crime and violence, Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) presented institutional anomie theory (IAT) and proposed two important components—the institutional culture and the social structure of economic dominance in the institutional balance of power.

Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) described four main characters of U.S. culture: achievement, individualism, universalism, and the fetishism of money. According to Messner and Rosenfeld, U.S. culture emphasizes the achievement of material success (achievement), and money is the primary metric of one’s success (the fetishism of money). The commitment to the material success is universal (universalism), which leads to uncontrolled individual competition (individualism). According to Messner and Rosenfeld (2007), a core element of the American Dream is an intense cultural pressure for economic success at the cost of other people. People in a highly materialistic culture experience an extreme pressure to achieve economic success by any means necessary. According to Messner and Rosenfeld (2007), people in such a society are likely to conceive other people as their rivals and have a tendency to utilize illegitimate means to defeat others.

The domination of a culture of economic goals leads to weakening of traditional institutions such as family and school, which Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) referred to as an institutional imbalance of power. Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) conceived that people react to the overpowering pressure to attain wealth by means of devaluation, accommodation, and penetration. The family is devalued for economic success, that is, people admire “the homeowner” rather than “the homemaker” (Messner and Rosenfeld, 2007, p. 77). The most distinct way of accommodating the excessive economic pressure and demand is seeking employment (Messner and Rosenfeld, 2007). For instance, many women accommodate economic demands by sacrificing parenting and home education to participate in the labor force by outsourcing child care.

Traditionally, women have held the role of a full-time housewife, but the economic pressure in a capitalist society has made many of them obtain full- or part-time employment outside their homes. According to Messner and Rosenfeld (2007), 62% of married women with a child below the age of six had either part- or full-time employment outside their homes in the United States in 2001. Such an increase in women’s employment contributes to an increased number of families with employed single mothers and those with both parents’ employed, which is conducive to deficiencies in providing the necessary emotional support for children.

Surrogate parenting in schools or any other institutions is poorly equipped to offer such support (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2007). Consequently, the family no longer acts as a refuge from tensions and stress for children (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2007). Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) posited that weakened noneconomic institutions hamper those institutions’ roles of promoting allegiance to social norms. Maternal employment may disrupt children’s cognitive and emotional development and school performance, which contributes to the development of delinquent behaviors. In addition, the impotence of the family institution fails to provide the warm and responsive social support for children as a way of controlling their deviant and criminal behaviors. Given this theory, Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) suggested reforming families and schools as a crime reduction policy. They called for initiatives such as family leave, flexible work schedule, and child care provided by employers.

Messner and Rosenfeld’s (2007) line of reasoning on the relationship between maternal employment, maternal supervision, informal social control, emotional support, and delinquency is not totally new. Instead, such reasoning is well rooted in individual-level criminological studies. The direct control by parents refers to supervision, whereas indirect control is related to attachment to parents (Hirschi, 1969). In a reanalysis of the classic study conducted by Glueck and Glueck (1950), for instance, Sampson and Laub (1994) reported that children left alone due to inadequate maternal supervision are more likely to become delinquents than those who are well supervised by their mothers. Primarily based on social control theory (Hirschi, 1969), Sampson and Laub concluded that maternal employment has an adverse effect on maternal supervision and informal social control, which leads to an increase in delinquency. A more recent study by Han et al. (2010) also found that mothers’ long hours of employment outside their homes impede maternal closeness, which has an aggravating effect on their children’s delinquent and risky behaviors. In addition to its detrimental effect on maternal supervision, control, and attachment, maternal employment may be associated with delinquency because employed mothers’ job stresses spill over to their children, which result in harsh and erratic parenting style (Vander Ven, Cullen, Carrozza, & Wright, 2001). In addition, mothers who suffer from both job stress and household concerns may not have sufficient energy to maintain a close and constructive relationship with their children.

Unlike the aforementioned studies, some other researchers proposed that maternal employment does not necessarily have a detrimental impact on children. Employed mothers are likely to rely on their parents (or parents-in-law) or professional child care services, which relieves the mothers’ stress levels (Yeo & Teo, 2013). In addition, maternal employment may enhance the mother’s sense of autonomy and positive self-esteem. Finally, emotional support for employed mothers by their significant others may have a buffering impact on the adverse relationship between maternal employment and children’s delinquent and criminal acts (Ghazarian & Roche, 2010). Thus, the relationship between maternal employment and crimes has not been resolved yet; the relationship requires further research.

As discussed earlier, many prior studies have investigated the relationship between maternal employment and delinquency in the individual-level analysis in the United States. However, Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) applied the theoretical framework of individual-level juvenile delinquency rates to those of societal-level homicide rates. For explanation, Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) argued that some young African American males in large cities in the United States attempt to achieve the American Dream by selling illegal drugs, which increases the risk of gang violence and homicide. Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) added that a significant number of violent crimes are directly and indirectly motivated by financial gains. Criminals, in general, do not rely on legitimate resolution methods for their problems with illicit transactions with other criminals; rather, they resort to violence as a form of “self-help” (p. 4). Thus, the cultural ethos of excessive materialism may be coupled with the homicide rate in a country. Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) alluded to the detrimental impact of maternal employment upon national homicide rates across several countries.

In addition to competitive materialism and female employment, Messner and Rosenfeld (1997) indicated that decommodification is related to the institutional balance of power, as Esping-Anderson (1990) defined decommodification as “the degree to which individuals, or families, can uphold a socially acceptable standard of living independent of market participation” (p. 37). Decommodification grants services and resources to citizens, freeing them from a harsh reality of the market economy, thus enabling them to get married, have children, and spend more time with their family members, which leads to stronger family ties. Consequently, a society with generous social welfare is likely to register a low homicide rate, as a person’s criminal behavior is mitigated by his or her strengthened family (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2007).

Given Messner and Rosenfeld’s (2007) IAT, the present study hypothesizes that competitive materialism is positively related to female employment in a country. More importantly, both competitive materialism and female employment are hypothesized to be positively related to a nation’s homicide rate. It is interesting to test such hypotheses because previous works have not paid much attention to the relationship between competitive materialism, female employment, and homicide rate in a macrolevel analysis.

Other Important Predictors of International Homicide

Previous studies presented important predictors of the international homicide rate, such as economic development, income inequality, ethnic heterogeneity, and being in the Latin American region. First, Durkheim (1958) reported that the homicide rate decreased in France from 1826 to 1880. Other studies have confirmed this trend in contemporary contexts (He, Cao, Wells, & Maguire, 2003; Stack & Kposowa, 2011; Tuttle, 2013; Unnithan & Whitt, 1992). Civilizing process hypothesis is one explanation for the negative relationship between modernization and homicide rate (Elias, 1978). According to the civilizing process hypothesis, people in a developed society are subject to an internal and external constraint against using violence as a solution to interpersonal conflicts. Instead, people tend to use a legal process in a courtroom to resolve the conflicts, which contributes to a low homicide rate (Eisner, 2003; Hall, 2006). Therefore, economic development is hypothesized to have a negative association with homicide rate.

Similarly, relatively consistent supports for income inequality have existed in the explanation of an increased homicide rate across countries (Chamlin & Cochran, 2006; Pratt & Godsey, 2003; Tuttle, 2013). The critical economic theory posits that economically disadvantaged groups in a society express frustration and anger toward others because they are likely to attribute blame to others for their economic failures (He et al., 2003; Jensen, 2006). By contrast, Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) viewed that economic equality alone does not lessen the unconstrained pressure of monetary success, institutional anomie, and crime and violence, as long as the economy dominates the institutional balance of power.

Next, based on the social disorganization theory (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997; Shaw & McKay, 1942), ethnic heterogeneity is hypothesized to be associated with a high homicide rate (Altheimer, 2008; Chon, 2012). An ethnically heterogeneous society experiences a problem with controlling its members’ deviant and criminal behaviors, which is conducive to a high homicide rate (Jensen, 2002). Next, Neapolitan (1994) reported an elevated homicide rate in the Latin American region in comparison with other regions in the world (see also Jensen & Akers, 2003). Neapolitan (1994) explained that the regional subculture of violence originating from a patriarchal culture, or machismo, is responsible for the high homicide rates in Latin America. According to Neapolitan (1994), machismo came from the brutalization of indigenous people by the Spanish conquerors during the period of colonization. He added that machismo creates a social environment that is tolerant of the dominance of males over females and the use of violence among people in Latin American. In contrast to Neapolitan’s (1994) regional subculture of violence theory, Chon (2011) uncovered that poverty and income inequality, rather than the regional violent subculture, are related to the exaggerated homicide rates in Latin American countries. Thus, it is interesting to test the impact of the Latin American region as a control variable in the current study.

Data and Method

Dependent Variable

Table 1 displays variables and their descriptive statistics. The dependent variable is the homicide rate (per 100,000 people), which has been drawn from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Burden of Disease (GBD) database. The WHO defines homicide as the death of a human being caused by another individual. The WHO’s information regarding homicide rates is considered more reliable than police data such as Interpol’s (1995) International Criminal Statistics, as the WHO’s information is based on vital statistics and an actual count of dead bodies, which often requires a physician or other medical personnel’s inspection of a dead body and/or witness statements regarding the cause of death (The United Nations, 2005). The present study used the average rate documented in the GBDs that were collected in 2008 and 2011 to prevent any potential fluctuations in the annual rate (WHO, 2011, 2014).

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics.

	Minimum	Maximum	M	SD
Homicide rate	0.41	37.43	7.85	9.36
Competitive materialism	3.35	6.53	4.66	0.74
Female employment rate (%)	20.10	80.00	51.16	13.83
GDP per capita	930.00	41,890.00	14,533.88	12,734.66
Gini coefficient of income inequality	24.90	57.80	39.88	8.88
Social welfare spending (%)	0.44	29.07	10.69	8.14
Ethnic heterogeneity	0.01	0.90	0.44	0.27
Latin America	0.00	1.00	0.17	0.38

Independent Variables

Competitive materialism and female employment

The data on attitudes toward competitive materialism were based on the fifth wave of the World Value Survey (WVS), which covered the years 2005 to 2009 (WVS Association, 2012). The WVS contains information on a variety of values and beliefs among people in multiple countries; each of the participating countries has a chief investigator who is responsible for collecting the WVS for that country. The WVS uses a standard questionnaire that is translated into different languages. By utilizing a systematic random sampling technique, the WVS aims to obtain a minimum of 1,000 samples from each participating country (WVS Association, 2012). The WVS measured competitive materialism on a 10-point scale where the value of 1 indicates the total agreement with the statement, “People can only get rich at the expenses of others,” and the value of 10 displays the total agreement with the statement, “Wealth can grow so there’s enough for everyone.” The current study reversed the order so that a high score indicates a competitive and individualistic materialism.

Next, the information on international maternal employment rate is available only for a limited number of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s (OECD, 2014) member countries. The OECD publishes the employment rate percentage among all mothers aged between 15 and 64 years old with at least one child below the age of 15. Thirteen OECD countries’ data on maternal employment in 2005 overlapped with the current data set of 45 countries. The Pearson’s correlation coefficient between the maternal employment rate and female employment rate for those 13 overlapping countries is .89, indicating a high correlation. Although it does not provide a full justification, such finding may offer some support of the use of female employment rates in lieu of maternal employment rates. Therefore, the present exploration used the percentage of females in economic activity instead (Gartner, 1991), referring to “The share of the female population ages 15 and older who supply, or are available to supply labor for the production of goods and services” (the United Nations Development Program [UNDP], 2006, pp. 404-405). The information on female labor force participation came from the UNDP’s (2006) Human Development Report for the year of 2005.

Other variables

Other variables included in the current study were GDP per capita, the Gini coefficient of income inequality, and a national government’s social welfare spending as a percentage of a total GDP, ethnic heterogeneity, and a Latin American dummy variable. GDP per capita indicates a country’s economic development level. The information on GDP per capita was derived from the UNDP’s Human Development Report (2006). The UNDP calculates GDP per capita in U.S. dollars by also considering the difference in purchasing power in each country. Next, relying on the same Human Development Report, the Gini coefficient of income inequality delineates household income disparity ranging from 0 (equal) to 100 (unequal income distribution).

Unlike other economic variables, the decommodification index in an international context is difficult to acquire; Savolainen (2000) suggested that government spending on social security and other welfare programs as a percentage of a total national GDP overlap reasonably well with Messner and Rosenfeld’s (1997) decommodification index (r = .71 for 36 overlapping countries). As a result, the present work relied only on the government’s social welfare spending (Gartner, 1991). Government spending for social welfare was based on the statistics circa 2007 from the International Labor Organization’s (2014) World Protection Report, which details government spending for social protection and public health care as the percentage of a country’s total GDP.

Two additional variables were ethnic heterogeneity index and Latin American geographical dummy variable. Given the fact that Alesina, Devleeschauwer, Easterly, Kurlat, and Wacziarg’s (2003) ethnic heterogeneity or fractionalization index was outdated, covering primarily 1980s to 1990s, the present work utilized the index from Selway (2011),¹ covering up to the year of 2006. The current study used the index from Selway’s circa 2005. The index shows the probability of two randomly selected individuals belonging to two different ethnic groups in a nation, ranging from 0 to 1. Next, following Neapolitan (1994), Latin America included all countries in South and Central America, while also covering the Caribbean nations; consequently, the present examination included eight Latin American countries (see Appendix A).

Diagnostic Tests and Analytical Strategies

Diagnostic tests suggested a few problems with the current data set. The current study used natural log transformations for the homicide rate, GDP per capita, and social welfare spending due to their skewnesses. Next, an inspection of both residual plot and a formal Breusch–Pagan test indicated that heteroskedasticity is not a serious problem for all regression models; this may be related to the log transformations of those three skewed variables. In addition, the zero-order correlation matrix (Appendix B) indicated no serious issue with collinearity because the correlation coefficients between independent variables were not elevated. In addition, variation inflation factors (VIFs) for variables in a full regression model were lower than 2.3, which confirmed that collinearity is not present. After taking these remedial measures, the current research developed two regression models. The first model introduced only two variables of interest—competitive materialism and female employment rate. The second model added all other variables to the first model to examine the impact of these variables on the first model.

Results

Appendix A shows competitive materialism scores for 45 countries in the current research. Overall, the score for each country is not compatible with the expectations of the present study. First, the United States’s score was not exceptionally high in comparison with other countries. The United States’s score of 4.67 was close to the average of all those 45 countries (4.66). Unlike Messner and Rosenfeld’s (2007) implication that highly developed capitalist societies are likely to experience a high level of competitive materialism, some developing nations such as Iran (6.05), India (5.96), Turkey (5.61), Ethiopia (5.42), and Ghana (5.33) displayed much higher competitive individualism scores than the United States (4.67). Finally, as Neapolitan (1994) and Jensen and Akers (2003) indicated, the average homicide rate in Latin America (16.68) is well above the average of 45 countries (7.85). In spite of such a high homicide rate, the average score of competitive materialism in Latin American countries (3.98) is lower than that of those 45 countries (4.66).

The results of the zero-order correlation analyses (Appendix B) are also not consistent with the current hypotheses. Neither competitive materialism nor female employment is associated with the homicide rate. In addition, no significant correlation exists between competitive materialism and female employment rate. Economic development is not significantly related to competitive materialism and female employment rate.

Table 2 presents the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression results for the logged homicide rate. The first regression model showed that neither competitive materialism nor female employment rate is significantly related to homicide rate. The r² of .09 suggested that these two variables have a minimal contribution to the explanation of cross-national variation of homicide rate. The second regression model exhibited that both competitive materialism and female employment rate, along with government social welfare spending, were not significant. By contrast, GDP per capita was negatively correlated (p < .001), whereas both the Gini coefficient of income inequality and Latin American dummy variable were positively correlated to homicide rate (p < .05). A 1% increase in GDP per capita was associated with a 0.51% decrease, whereas a one unit increase in the Gini coefficient was related to a 3% increase in the homicide rate. In a similar manner, being in a Latin American country was associated with a 95% increase in the homicide rate. The variables in the second model explained 68% of the variation in the homicide rate, which was significantly improved from the first model.

Table 2.

Regression Results of Logged Homicide Rate (N = 45).

	1	2
Competitive materialism	−.32 (.25)	−.01 (.18)
Female employment rate (%)	.02 (.01)	.01 (.01)
GDP per capita (ln)	—	−.51*** (.13)
Gini income inequality	—	.03* (.02)
Social welfare spending (% of GDP, ln)	—	.08 (.17)
Ethnic heterogeneity	—	.90 (.47)
Latin America	—	.95* (.41)
R ²	.09	.68

Note. Significance levels are based on one-tailed tests.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Discussion and Conclusion

Interpretation of Findings

The regression results showed that neither a competitive materialistic culture nor women’s employment rate was related to the homicide rate. The national culture that emphasizes the accumulation of wealth at the costs of other people is not necessarily related to either an increase in female employment or homicide rate. In addition, Messner and Rosenfeld’s (2007) IAT implies that people in developed countries experience greater pressure for competitive materialism than those in developing ones. The current bivariate analysis suggests that no significant relationship exists between a country’s economic development and its competitive materialism. People in developed countries are not necessarily more subject to the competitive materialism than those in developing countries. For explanation, Americans do not exhibit much higher competitive materialistic attitudes than those in other countries. The current findings may suggest that people’s reactions to competitive materialistic culture are more important than the competitive materialistic culture itself in a nation.

Merton (1968) indicated different modes of adapting to the strain that comes from the gap between culture goals of economic success and means to achieve them. Merton’s theory provides a hint that the strain does not automatically lead to criminal behaviors. The different modes of adaptations may be dependent on unique factors in each country. For instance, Buddhism’s teaching of antimaterialism may relieve the aggravating effect of competitive materialism upon homicide rate. Thailand, a predominantly Buddhist country in the present sample, registered a low competitive materialism score (3.60) and the same country was ranked 43rd out of 45 countries. Therefore, future researchers need to explore a possible role of religion in the explanation of international homicide rate.

In addition, competitive materialistic culture has no significant correlation with women’s employment rate, implying that competitive materialistic culture in a society does not necessarily lead to devaluation of traditional women’s role and increased women’s employment. Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) may have overemphasized the importance of economic goals as the primary motivation of women’s employment. Instead, women’s employment rate may be dependent upon several other factors such as the availability and quality of paid leave and public child care. For example, the United States and Canada have limited leave entitlement and public child care, whereas France and Germany offer well-developed entitlements and public child care. A well-developed leave entitlement and public child care may be related to an increased level of mothers’ employment with longer hours. In addition, some national cultures support the traditional gender roles of women, whereas others do not. The women’s employment rate may be low when a national culture emphasizes women’s traditional gender role (Boeckmann, Misra, & Budig, 2014).

The nonsignificant association between female employment rate and the homicide rate has some implications. Employed mothers may not necessarily be subjected to a higher level of stress than their full-time housewife counterparts. Employed mothers usually send their young children to their parents or parents-in-law, whereas others rely on paid child care. Consequently, no significant difference in stress level may exist between employed and unemployed mothers (Yeo & Teo, 2013). A mother’s paid employment may boost family income, the mother’s sense of autonomy, and positive self-esteem. Inconsistent with Messner and Rosenfeld’s (2007) assertion, a mother’s employment may be associated with creating an environment of warm and responsive nurturing of her children.

In addition, other factors may be more important for a mother’s parenting behaviors than her employment status. Emotional support for a mother by her close friends and family members may contribute to her warm and responsive parenting. In addition, social support may help the mother overcome job stresses. As a result, it is possible that an employed mother with a strong social support is still able to provide necessary support for and control of her children (Ghazarian & Roche, 2010). McMunn, Kelly, Cable, and Bartley’s (2012) study is congruent with such a line of thought, as they have not found the detrimental effects of mothers’ employment on their children’s subsequent behavior.

Another weakness of Messner and Rosenfeld’s (2007) theory is its questionable applicability to homicide. Many prior studies have focused on the relationship between maternal employment and juvenile delinquency. The link between maternal employment and homicide for the general population, however, may be theoretically and empirically weak. Therefore, future researchers need to investigate the association between maternal employment and youth homicide victimization, as youth victimization may be more closely linked to maternal employment than homicide rate for the general population.

In addition, the support of the relationship among competitive materialism, maternal employment, and crime may vary by a unit of analysis, such as cross-national and subnational study (Bjerregaard & Cochran, 2008). Another inconsistent finding is a nonsignificant association between the social welfare spending and homicide rate. This finding, however, is consistent with Bjerregaard and Cochran (2008). This discovery may connote that social welfare does not have a significant and independent effect on a cross-national homicide rate (Jensen, 2002).

Unlike competitive materialism, female employment, and social welfare spending, absolute poverty is strongly and positively related to a national homicide rate, which is consistent with prior works (He et al., 2003; Stack & Kposowa, 2011; Unnithan & Whitt, 1992). The GDP per capita is significantly and inversely related to national homicide rate. This result, however, is not consistent with Messner and Rosenfeld’s (2007) suggestion that a capitalist economy cultivates uncontrolled competition, institutional anomie, and a high crime rate including homicide. Instead, such a result is congruent with civilizing process hypothesis (Elias, 1978), in which people in a developed society are less likely to use violence than those in a developing society due to internal and external constraints. In short, the economic development has an independent relationship with a national homicide rate.

In a similar fashion, the Gini coefficient of income inequality is positively associated with a national homicide rate (Pratt & Godsey, 2003; Tuttle, 2013). It is consistent with the critical economic theory that the groups of people who are economically discriminated against are likely to use violence toward others as a way of expressing their frustration. By supporting the social disorganization theory (Shaw & McKay, 1942), ethnic heterogeneity is related to an elevated level of the homicide rate. Civic organizations have difficulty controlling citizens’ violent behaviors when their country is ethnically heterogeneous.

Next, Latin American countries register significantly higher homicide rates than those in other regions. However, it does not necessarily provide any evidence of a violent subculture in Latin America (Neapolitan, 1994). Other unique factors in Latin America may contribute to the high homicide rate in that region, including the existence of drug cartels, paramilitary/guerrilla activities, racial discrimination, and excessive alcohol consumption (Chon, 2011).

Limitations of the Current Study and Future Research Implications

A few limitations of the current work warrant a brief explanation. The inclusion of variables in the present study is far from complete. Cullen, Parboteeah, and Hoegl (2004) recommended the use of GLOBE (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004), which provides international cultural indicators such as achievement and individualism orientation. The Global Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness (GLOBE) project is collected from surveys of employees from international corporations. The current work, however, does not include the information from the GLOBE because such information is limited to only a small number of countries. If the same information is available for a larger number of countries in the future, researchers may utilize it.

Another limitation is that the current study has not employed disaggregated types of homicide because of a lack of such information from international sources. For explanation, Chamlin, Cochran, and Lowenkamp (2002) found a significant and negative association of social welfare transfer with familial homicide, and not with nonfamily related homicides. Chamlin et al. (2002) explained that social welfare is related to a low familial homicide rate because social welfare improves the function of the family. In a similar fashion, Stults and Baumer (2008) asserted that a different set of variables may explain instrumental crimes (e.g., robbery, burglary, and larceny) better than noninstrumental crimes. Thus, future researchers need to test the impact of competitive materialistic culture and women’s employment by using instrumental crimes (Baumer & Gustafson, 2007). The research on such instrumental crimes in a cross-national study is challenging because of the cross-national difference in the definitions of such crimes so that a subnational study may be more feasible than cross-national studies.

Finally, the present work utilized a variable of whether or not women are available for parenting. There is no guarantee that the women who are available for parenting are actually engaging in it. Similarly, the main interest of Messner and Rosenfeld (2007) may be the relationship between maternal employment and its adverse consequences on violence including homicide. The present work, however, utilized female employment rates in general due to the limited availability of the information on maternal employment. Although the female employment rate may be indirectly related to maternal employment in a country, future researchers need to find a way to directly measure of maternal employment rate and test its association with homicide rate. An alternative analytical strategy may be the use of panel data for the OECD countries that provide maternal employment rates, and a researcher may be able to increase a sample size by employing multiple-year information for those countries. In addition, the better measure of a mother’s absence of parenting than her employment status may be the mother’s actual work hours. Although the international information on average work hours is available from Human Development Reports (UNDP, 2008), the same information is available only for a small number of countries (33) and it is somewhat outdated because it is based on the 1990s and early 2000s. Consequently, the utility of such information for research is limited in these aspects.

Conclusion

The current study tested Messner and Rosenfeld’s (2007) proposition that competitive materialistic culture and women’s increased employment are related to homicide rate. Further works, however, need to delve into this research area by overcoming the limitations of the present research. Finally, researchers need to be aware that the current exploration is not designed to test IAT. Instead, it investigated only a limited number of variables drawn from the IAT. Therefore, one should not interpret that the present findings weaken the IAT.

Footnotes

Appendix

Appendix B

Zero-Order Correlation Matrix.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Homicide (ln)	1
2. Competitive materialism	−.21	1
3. Female employment rate (%)	.23	−.10	1
4. GDP per capita (ln)	−.60**	.04	−.05	1
5. Gini inequality	.62**	−.24	.09	−.32*	1
6. Social welfare spending (%, ln)	−.35*	.16	.09	.62**	−.25	1
7. Ethnic heterogeneity	.55**	−.02	.21	−.45**	−.43**	−.48**	1
8. Latin America	.43**	−.43**	−.01	.03	.52**	.07	.15

p < .05. **p < .01.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Don Soo Chon is an associate professor in the Department of Justice and Public Safety at Auburn University at Montgomery. He received his PhD degree from the Florida State University. His research interests include cross-national study of homicide, sexual assault, and fear of crime.

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