title: Age at immigration and crime in Stockholm using sibling comparisons.
abstract: Past Swedish research has shown that immigrants arriving in the receiving country at an older age are less likely to commit crime than immigrants arriving at a younger age. Segmented assimilation theory argues that the family and neighborhood may be important factors affecting how age at immigration and crime are related to one another. This study used population-based register data on foreign-background males from Stockholm to test the effect of age at immigration on crime. Potential confounding from the family and neighborhood was addressed using variables and modeling strategies. Initial results, using variables to control for confounding, showed that people who immigrated around age 4 were the most likely to be suspected of a crime. When controlling for unmeasured family characteristics, it seemed that a later age at immigration was tied to a lower likelihood of crime, which does not corroborate past research findings. The effect of age at immigration, however, was not statistically significant. The results imply that future research on entire families may be a worthwhile endeavor.
authors.affiliation: Stockholm University, Department of Criminology, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden; Duke University, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, 2020 West Main Street, Suite 201, Durham, NC 27708, United States. Electronic address: amber.beckley@duke.edu.
authors.forename: Amber L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Beckley
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003415:Crime; D057237:Criminals; D003710:Demography; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants; D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D035781:Siblings; D013548:Sweden; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Age at immigration; Crime; Immigrants; Segmented assimilation