Empirical research on long-run equilibrium between social harmony and social security incidents

Disharmony in China primarily reflected in the income, education, employment. The research object of this paper was crime in social security incidents. Income inequality and education has been viewed as having important impact on crime. Many literatures reported that higher income inequality is associated with higher crime rates. Some literatures concluded education development can raise the residents’ income level and reduce income inequality, thereby result in slower crime growth. In China, residents’ income has increased largely. But at the same time, GINI coefficient has continued to improve in recent years, and the crime rate has continually increased. This paper analyzed the long-run and short-run relationships between property crime rate and income inequality, education, unemployment, based on vector error correction model. Variables in the model included per capita annual disposable income of Chinese urban households, GINI coefficient, and enrolment rate of junior secondary graduates entering senior secondary schools and unemployment rate. Data used are time series data from 1978 to 2007 in China. The result confirms the existence of long-run equilibrium relationship between income inequality, education and crime. And income and income inequality effect change in crime rate in short-run significantly. © 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Beijing Institute of Technology.