Extreme Weather And Violence In Russia: Evidence Across Age And Gender | مركز سمت للدراسات

Extreme Weather And Violence In Russia: Evidence Across Age And Gender

Date & time : Friday, 3 January 2020

Vladimir Otrachshenko, Olga Popova and José Tavares

Global climate change is hotly debated in academia, policy circles, and the media. Many people recognise the impact of climate change on specific countries or regions, but few consider the possible influence of climate change on personal interactions.

While the weather–mortality literature (reviewed in Dell et al. 2014) shows a connection between climate change, conflict, and warfare, the economics literature has so far barely examined how uncomfortably high or low temperatures might trigger aggressive individual behaviour. This is at odds with studies in biology and psychology, where the weather–behaviour linkage is ubiquitous. While we recognise violent individual acts are extremely hard to predict, any progress is valuable as it may help reduce victimisation.

The first comprehensive evidence of the impact of climate change on crime was presented by Ranson (2014), who analysed US historical data and estimated a positive relationship between hot temperatures and crime. While both hot and cold ambient temperatures are stressful, epidemiological evidence suggests that hot temperatures are more prone to hormone activation that leads to aggression, as suggested in Anderson (1989). Moreover, coldest temperatures are correlated with lower mobility — due to, say, snow, which constitutes a natural obstacle to crime.

Weather and violent mortality in Russia

While climate change may lead to more frequent extreme weather events globally, Russia is a key terrain to analyse the impact of extreme temperatures: its average daily temperatures range between -60°C and +35°C; its warmest month is July, with an average temperature of 15.1°C, while the coldest month, January, sports an average temperature of -25.2°C. Recent studies, relying on Russian data, show that extremely hot and cold temperatures increase mortality from all causes and from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases (Otrachshenko et al. 2017). Otrachshenko et al. (2018) show that heat waves and cold spells, i.e. a sequence of days with a similar pattern of extreme temperature, are especially harmful. On the other hand, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2019) shows Russia with the highest rate of intentional homicide in Europe and with one of the highest in the world, immediately after African and Latin American countries.

In our study (Popova et al. 2019), we examine the impact of hot and cold temperatures on homicide rates across gender and age groups, drawing on a unique dataset that compiles new climactic information for Russian regions over a 25-year period. We conclude that hot weather favours the occurrence of violence so that days with temperatures above 25°C are associated with an increase of 0.60 homicide victims per million inhabitants, which corresponds to about 87 additional deaths per hot day. The impact of a hotter day on homicides is equivalent to that of a 0.36%-increase in regional GDP per capita (for technical details, see Popova et al. 2019). On the other hand, cold temperatures do not affect violence rates. Thus, an increase in the number of extremely hot days as a result of global warming would result in a likely increase in homicide victims.

Inequality by gender and age

A key policy issue is whether certain population groups, such as women and the elderly, are differently vulnerable to victimisation. We find, indeed, strong evidence of unequal victimisation. In Figure 1, we show the impact of an extra day with temperatures above 25°C on the likelihood of becoming a homicide victim, across gender and age groups. Quantitatively, males are more often the victims; young and mature males are more likely to become victims of homicide than women.

A comparison of violence on weekdays with that on weekends strongly suggests the presence of domestic violence. On weekends, family interactions are likely to increase, and violence may occur at home. Figure 2 shows that both males and females are more likely to become homicide victims during weekends with unusually high temperatures, where overall victimhood rates roughly double for both males and females. In particular, among young and mature females with ages up to 44, the number of homicide victims multiply tenfold on weekends, and that difference is statistically significant for females between 25 and 44 years of age. This finding suggests domestic violence may be a core element in the weather–violence link. Given the scarcity of official statistics on domestic violence in Russia, we believe this conclusion, though merely suggestive, to be of utmost importance.

Sour; VOX CEPR Policy Portal

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