Do Teen Births Keep American Crime High?

The United States has a high teenage birth rate relative to other developed countries. Children of teenagers experience more difficult childhoods than children born to other mothers, and hence may be more likely to commit crimes subsequently. I assess to what extent international patterns in teen birth rates can explain why the United States had the highest crime rates of developed countries in the 1980s, and why U.S. relative crime rates subsequently fell. For this purpose, I use internationally comparable crime rates measured from the 1989-2000 International Crime Victims Surveys. I find that the assault rate is increased by an increase in the proportion of the most crime-prone age group that was born to a teen mother. The pattern of teen births in the United States fully explains the 1980s assault difference with the rest of the world, and prevented the subsequent fall in assault from being 20% greater. The type of assault most affected is perpetrated by unarmed lone assailants known to the victim by name, particularly at home or at work, and is not reported to the police. I also present evidence on larceny and burglary.