Comparing trends in infanticides in 28 countries, 1960–2009

Abstract

The term ‘infanticide’ refers to the homicide of a child younger than one year old. In this article, we describe infanticide trends in 28 industrialized countries between 1960 and 2009. The analysis is based on the cause of death data from the WHO Mortality Database and national materials. The purpose is to compare those trends in all these 28 countries not to compare countries per se. Cause of death statistics are based on ICD classification. During the review period, ICD classification changed three times. In addition to describing infanticide trends, we will analyse the impact of those changes on statistical infanticide levels, to be sure that changes in trends could be seen as real, not statistical artefacts. According to our analysis, the change from ICD-7 to ICD-9 in 1968–1970 seems to have had some impact on registered infanticide mortality levels in three of the studied countries. In other countries, the changes did not have any general impact on registered infanticide levels. During the period, infanticide rates decreased in almost all European countries, and increased or were stable in most non-European industrialized countries. Even in Europe, there were significant differences in the decreasing trend between countries. We also found some structural variation behind the trend figures, which raised the question of whether the aggregated infanticide levels really describe an identical phenomenon in different countries.