Do macro-contextual characteristics account for individual rates of adolescent deviance? a nine-country study

The current study tested whether macro, country-level characteristics (per capita income, crime rate, divorce rate, drinking age, and median population age) account for variability in individual-level deviant behavior. Based on a sample of N = 14,290 adolescents from nine different countries (Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States), key findings include that (a) for all deviance measures, with the exception of alcohol use (vandalism, drug use, school misconduct, general deviance, theft, and assault), factor structures were largely invariant across the nine countries; (2) between-country variability comprised a significant proportion of variance in all seven deviance indices (particularly for less serious forms of deviance, and less so for more serious forms, such as theft or assault); and (3) only national crime rates explained significant variability in any of the deviance indices.