Demography, Youth Fragility and Violent Crime: the Case of Brazil

PRELIMINARY. PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION Mimicking the US in 1980 and 1990s, Brazil is a remarkable case of a major shift in homicides. After increasing steadily throughout the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, homicides reached a peak in 2003, and then fell steeply. First, I show a strong time-series co-movement between homicide rates and the percentage of the population in 15-24 age bracket. Second, I use a panel of states and estimate very high elasticity of homicide with respect to changes in the 15-24 year-old population (around 2.4), after controlling for income, income inequality, for state and year fixed-effects. Third, we study the case of São Paulo, the largest state in the Federation and whose shift in homicides has been particularly acute. I show that, in line with the national evidence, city-level panel elasticities are similar to the state-level estimates. Furthermore, the demographic shift in São Paulo was more pronounced than the national one, explaining the particularly large shift in homicides in São Paulo. Fourth, I show evidence that the large cohort born in 1970 and 1980 is a result of a sharp reduction in infant mortality only belatedly followed by an acceleration in the reduction of fertility. Finally I show that the large 19701980 cohort is associated with a reduction in the rhythm of improvement in educational attainment. Thus, the large homicide shift in Brazil is produced by a particularly large and socially fragile cohort.