Violent Youth Retirin’ Peace?
The world is becoming safer because the world is getting older.
Today, Israel is forcibly removing Israeli settlers from Gaza. The LA Times reports that radical young West Bank settlers moved into Gaza and are camping there for the fight. Meanwhile the NY Times reports that Gaza youngsters are slashing tires and smashing windows in their own protests.
The Arab radicals follow the same pattern. I can think of examples of young, female suicide bombers, but no old ones. Most of the Iraqi insurgents and suicide bombers you hear about are in their 20s. On the other side, US soldiers are also generally in their 20s. It every corner of the world, the youth are the most radical, extreme and violent.
We also know that the world is aging. Stories abound detail various countries’ aging population and the problems aging causes.
It is little surprise then that global war and violence are in sharp decline by every accountable measure. The safest countries such as Japan also have the oldest populations.
Am I talking out of my rear or can we verify this? Well a graph at MSN Encarta suggests that the average age of the US population was 32.0, 33.6 and 34.1 in 1970, 1990 and 2000 respectively. Graphs at ccrcal.org clearly show that people are older in 2000 than 1970.
How about crime? This website says that the total crime index was 5,950 in 1980, 5,820 in 1990 and 4,124 in 2000. This seems to jibe, but the violent crime index was 596.6, 731.8 and 506.1 during those years. So it only half jibes.
Freakonomics claims that crime is most closely correlated with the number of unwanted children in society. Unwanted children are fare more likely to commit crimes, so they suggested expanded access to abortion after Roe vs Wade in 1973 reduced crime 18 years later (1991) by reducing unwanted children. Check out that website’s table again.