Chinese Journal of Sociology ›› 2020, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (4): 191-216.

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The Barriers of Identity: Population Diversity,Social Trust and Crime

JIN Jiang1, SHI Yangjing2, ZHU Libo3   

  1. 1. School of Economics and Commerce, South China University of Technology;
    2. International School of Business and Finance, Sun Yat-sen University;
    3. The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Columbia University
  • Published:2020-07-18
  • Supported by:
    This paper was supported by the General Program of National Social Sciences Fund of China (18BRK021).

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Abstract: Since the reform and opening-up,the urbanization process in China has been advancing continuously. It brings tremendous economic development as well as all sorts of so-called “urban disease” problems. Scholars have studied the relationship between the size of floating population and the crime rate,but few have paid attention to the increasingly prominent population diversity and its effect on crime.
Based on the 2014 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey data,this paper has constructed a population diversity index to test its impact on crime rates. The results suggest that population diversity is one of the causes for the increase in urban crime. After considering the endogenous problem and testing the robustness from different perspectives,the conclusion remains unchanged. The results of mediate effect test indicate that social trust is an important intermediary variable,that is,population diversity leads to an increase of crime rate when the level of social trust is weak. Moreover,the results also show that the impact of population diversity on crime is much weaker when the property rights protection is more complete,people have more confidence in the court system and the government spend more in education and social security. It shows that better institutions can,to some extent,replace the role of non-market forces,thereby curbing the negative impact of population diversity on crime rates. It also suggests that public expenditure can reduce the likelihood of crime by increasing the opportunity cost of crime.
In sum,this paper explores the possible adverse effects of the differences in cultural identity of different groups and finds that the institutional factors and public expenditure have significant impact on crime control,providing empirical evidences valuable to the government crime control policies in China. Governments at all levels should pay full attention to the adverse effects of cultural differences in governance and promote the mutual cultural recognition and integration of different groups.

Key words: population diversity, social trust, crime