Studying the intergenerational transmission of crime with population data

Abstract

Conventional survey research has been suffering from decreasing participation rates for decades. In particular, the socially more deprived – those with low education levels, migrants and the unemployed – are of growing interest for policy makers but are among those the least likely to participate in surveys. In order to advance our knowledge on the sources and intergenerational transmission of crime, population-based datasets can be very useful, especially those datasets that cover a long period of historical time, are intergenerational and contain detailed information about offending, as well as information on families of origin, labour market participation, income and educational attainment. Statistics Netherlands hosts unique register data in the so-called System of Social statistical Datasets (SSD). The SSD is an integrated, longitudinal database of numerous registers and surveys, containing the most important socioeconomic and sociodemographic variables of the complete population of the Netherlands. In our example study we use information on five birth cohorts of young adults (N = 939,600) and their parents. We conclude by mentioning some limitations and recommendations regarding the use of population-based data in the study of the intergenerational transmission of crime.