Immigration and Rates of Personal Violence (Suicide and Homicide)

Abstract

For a sample of 34 nations Stack (1981) found that nations with a higher influx of immigrants had higher suicide rates. The present study examined homicide rates as well as suicide rates as a function of immigration rates using Lynn's (1971) sample of 18 industrialized nations: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the USA, and West Germany. (Data for Switzerland were not available.) Long-term immigration rates were obtained for 1969 from' the United Nations (19721, suicide and homicide rates for 1970 from the WHO (1973), and data for the two control variables used by Stack (the percent of elderly and females in the labor force in 1970) from the World Bank (1976). Immigration rates were not significantly correlated with either suicide rates (Pearson r = 0.10) or homicide rates (r = -0.08). In the multiple regression, immigration rates played no part in the prediction of suicide rates or homicide rates. For suicide rates, using a backward multiple regression, the percentage of females in the Iabor force played a significant role in the regression giving a multiple R of 0.78. For homicide rates, neither the percentage of women in the labor force nor the proportion of elderly played a significant role in the regression. Thus, the present analyses, using a sample of industrialized nations, did not replicate Stack's earlier finding on the rate of immigration to nations and their suicide rates, indicating the importance of the particular sample nations chosen for the analyses.