Statutory Age Research Articles

The Dilemma and Solution of Juvenile Delinquency – Reflection on the Murder of a 13-year-old Boy in China

On March 10, 2024, a 13-year-old junior high school student in Handan City, Hebei Province, China was killed and buried by three classmates under the age of 14. The method of committing the crime was cruel and had a negative social impact, once again bringing topics such as "juvenile delinquency" and "lowering the age of criminal responsibility" to the hot search. Since entering the new era, with the rapid development of the social economy, minors have shown an overall trend of "precocious puberty". The problem of juvenile delinquency and violence has also become increasingly severe, causing adverse social impacts. According to data released by the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China, juvenile delinquency in China is characterized by a sharp increase in the number of crimes, a clear trend towards younger age groups, and cruel criminal methods. The Eleventh Amendment to the Criminal Law, which came into effect in March 2021, lowered the age of criminal responsibility and individually lowered the statutory minimum age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old. Therefore, this case may become the first case to hold young minors accountable for crimes after the age of criminal responsibility has been lowered, which is of great significance to the construction of the rule of law and judicial practice. In practice, we should clarify the situation of "heinous circumstances" stipulated in the Amendment to the Criminal Law (XI), and establish an independent juvenile justice system to comprehensively and effectively correct and prevent the misconduct and illegal behavior of minors, rather than simply lowering the age of criminal responsibility. At the same time, reduce excessive interference of online public opinion in judicial trials.

Feticide Before Termination of Pregnancy in Singleton Pregnancy - Trends in England and Wales 2012-2020, a Cross-sectional Study.

Feticide is the practice of inducing fetal demise before the termination of pregnancy. In England and Wales, it is recommended for terminations of pregnancy beyond 21+6 weeks of gestation. This project analyses the trends in feticide in singleton pregnancy in England and Wales between 2012 and 2020.This project was a retrospective study that analysed data extracted from the Health and Social Act 4 (HSA4) forms submitted to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The data extracted by the DHSC included the prevalence of feticide, methods of feticide and termination, statutory grounds, gestation, service provider, maternal age, ethnicity and obstetric history. In addition, data analysis was carried out to identify trends.Between 2012 and 2020, there were 9310 feticides in England and Wales, undertaken in 0.5% of all abortions. The prevalence of feticide fluctuated; however, there was an overall decrease from 1084 cases in 2012 to 1000 cases in 2020. Intracardiac injection of potassium chloride was the most frequent method of achieving feticide (67.2%). Just over half (55.8%) of feticides took place under Ground E of the Abortion Act 1967, with the main indication being congenital malformations of the nervous system. Two-fifths (40.2%) of feticides took place at 23 weeks, 22.8% at 22 weeks and 13.5% between 20 and 21 weeks. The remainder occurred at later gestations: 17.5% at 24-29 weeks and 5.9% beyond 29 weeks. During our study period, it was more common for feticides to be carried out as part of a medical termination than a surgical termination and 60.3% occurred in NHS hospitals. Women undergoing feticide were mostly aged 30-34 years (38.3%) and of White ethnicity (78.6%).Feticide is an essential component of comprehensive abortion care for women undergoing late second and third-trimester abortions. This study provides insight into how feticide is carried out in England and Wales and demonstrates the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on reducing feticide prevalence. Future research should analyse in more detail the use of the different methods of feticide.

Age is Not Just a Number: Problems with Florida’s Statutory Minimum Age for Juvenile Delinquency and Why it Must be Increased

Under a Florida law enacted in 2021, any child over the age of six years old can be arrested and subjected to juvenile delinquency proceedings. Florida, as well as the United States in general, is an outlier when it comes to statutory minimum ages for juvenile delinquency. The most common and recommended minimum age internationally is fourteen years old, and many studies show that arresting, charging, and adjudicating children below the age of fourteen is counterproductive, as it leads to increased recidivism, potentially violates due process, and leaves lasting negative effects on children. This comment will discuss juvenile delinquency in the United States, as well as the problems associated with Florida’s current minimum age for juvenile delinquency. Additionally, this comment will address the problems associated with having such a low minimum age for juvenile delinquency and explain how, based on these problems, Florida’s current minimum age runs contrary to the purposes of Florida’s juvenile justice system and does not serve the bases for punishment. Finally, this comment will recommend that Florida lawmakers raise the statutory minimum age for juvenile delinquency to fourteen years old and provide alternatives to traditional juvenile justice procedures in order to mitigate the problems analyzed before and help achieve the purposes of Florida’s juvenile justice system.

Do adolescents with impaired vision have different intentions and ambitions for their education, career and social outcomes compared to their peers? Findings from the Millennium Cohort Study

Background/aimsTo investigate if impaired vision adversely impacts the intentions/ambitions of adolescents concerning their future education, careers and social outcomes.MethodsPopulation-based birth cohort study in the UK comprising 9273 participants from the...

Mortality and life expectancy trends in Spain by pension income level for male pensioners in the general regime retiring at the statutory age, 2005–2018

BackgroundResearch has generally found a significant inverse relationship in mortality risk across socioeconomic (SE) groups. This paper focuses on Spain, a country for which there continues to be very little evidence available concerning retirement pensioners. We draw on the Continuous Sample of Working Lives (CSWL) to investigate disparities in SE mortality among retired men aged 65 and above over the longest possible period covered by this data source: 2005–2018. We use the initial pension income (PI) level as our single indicator of the SE status of the retired population.MethodsThe mortality gradient by income is quantified in two ways: via an indicator referred to as “relative mortality”, and by estimating changes in total life expectancy (LE) by PI level at ages 65 and 75 over time. We show that, should the information provided by the relative mortality ratio not be completely clear, a second indicator needs to be introduced to give a broad picture of the true extent of inequality in mortality.ResultsThe first indicator reveals that, for the period covered and for all age groups, the differences in death rates across PI levels widens over time. At older age groups, these differences across PI levels diminish. The second indicator shows that disparities in LE at ages 65 and 75 between pensioners in the lowest and highest income groups are relatively small, although slightly higher than previously reported for Spain. This gap in LE widens over time, from 1.49 to 2.54 years and from 0.71 to 1.40 years respectively for pensioners aged 65 and 75. These differences are statistically significant.ConclusionsAlong with other behavioral and structural aspects, a combination of factors such as the design of the pension system, the universality and quality of the health system, and high levels of family support could explain why LE inequalities for retired Spanish men are relatively small. To establish the reasons for this increased inequality in LE, more research needs to be carried out. An analysis of all Spanish social security records instead of just a sample would provide us with more information.

A Transdisciplinary Perspective on the Adolescent Consent-Abuse Binary

Recently, there have been a plethora of judgments from courts across India, on the issue of adolescent consent for sexual decision-making and the POCSO Act’s criminalization of the same. This article begins with a brief overview of the socio-legal underpinnings of POCSO’s age of consent, the imperatives informing legislative intent to abstain from a lower statutory age, and crucially, ‘close-in-exceptions’ to legal consent. Subsequently, the authors discuss the implications of these age requirements, for POCSO’s implementation, from a child protection and criminalization perspective, and furthermore, highlight the imperative for the law to accommodate normative adolescent sexual development in its approach to consensual sexual engagement, as well as for consideration of the complexities of informed vis-à-vis manufactured consent in adolescent sexual engagements. The article concludes by highlighting the need for the application of transdisciplinary approaches, to developing methodologies, that assess adolescent consent in ways that resolve the consent-abuse dilemma.

Consent Is Not Enough

Consent Is Not Enough

MITIGASI BENCANA PERKAWINAN ANAK SEBAGAI UPAYA MEWUJUDKAN KELUARGA SAKINAH: PERSPEKTIF FIKIH PERLINDUNGAN ANAK

Child marriage, in the final analysis, is denial of childrens basic right. The practice also violates the prevailing law which sets a statutory age limitation for both men and women to marry at 19 years. The author seeks to analyse this legal-societal issue from Islamic law perspective. The analysis starts from the general observation that to prevent future dissent-disolvement of marriages, both parties should consider “rusyd”, in other words, their own or potential partners psychological, biological, and socio-economic maturity. In addition, to prevent child marriage, attention should be given to basic values of benefit (al mashlalah), the general principle of affection (mawaddah wa rahmah) and fulfillment of needs (taufir al-hajat).

Bridge Employment and Longevity: Evidence From a 10-Year Follow-Up Cohort Study in 0.16 Million Chinese.

Bridge employment has been encouraged by many countries worldwide as societies age rapidly. However, the health impact on bridge employment is not consistent in previous studies. This study aims to explore the association between bridge employment and long-term health outcome among the Chinese population. In this prospective cohort study, we used a subset of the China Kadoorie Biobank study, in which 163,619 participants who reached the statutory age of retirement at baseline (2004-2008) were included in this study. Mortality statistics were obtained from death registries in the Death Surveillance Points system annually. We used a Cox proportional hazard model to analyze the association between bridge employment and all-cause mortality. Overall, we found that compared to retired/nonemployed men and women, hazards of all-cause mortality were lower in older people with bridge employment (men: 0.82, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.77-0.88; women: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.74-0.94) in healthy populations. The protective effect of bridge employment was stronger among older adults living in rural areas and among those from a relatively low socioeconomic status. The lower risk of all-cause mortality associated with bridge employment was consistently observed among older men and women. Our findings may provide important insights from the health dimension on the retirement policy-making in China as a hyper-aging society.

Revisiting the effect of statutory pension ages on participation and the average age of retirement in OECD countries

Revisiting the effect of statutory pension ages on participation and the average age of retirement in OECD countries

Reference Points for Retirement Behavior: Evidence from German Pension Discontinuities

This paper studies the large concentration of retirement behavior around statutory retirement ages, a puzzling stylized fact. To investigate this fact, I estimate bunching responses to 644 pension benefit discontinuities, using administrative data on the universe of German retirees. Financial incentives alone cannot explain retirement patterns, but there is a large direct effect of statutory retirement ages. I argue that the framing of statutory ages as reference points for retirement provides a plausible explanation. Simulations based on a model with reference dependence highlight that shifting statutory ages via pension reforms is an effective policy to influence retirement behavior. (JEL D91, H55, J26, J32)

Happiness and life expectancy by main occupational position among older workers: Who will live longer and happy?

Current concerns about aging populations are being translated into legislations to postpone the statutory age at retirement. However, if this is done without considering inequalities in longevity across occupational groups, some may face higher vulnerabilities than others. We examine differences in life expectancy and happiness by occupational position for the Spanish population aged 50 and over. We use happiness as a measure of subjective wellbeing, and compute life expectancy and happy life expectancy by sex and main occupation. Age-specific death rates are calculated using administrative data, and happiness prevalence comes from the European Social Survey. We show that both men and women in managerial positions were advantaged in terms of life expectancy, but only men record more years with happiness. In addition, women in routine jobs were the ones who could expect to live shorter and unhappier. Postponing the statutory age at retirement without considering these differences could be detrimental to women's wellbeing and health.

Analysis of Crimes of Juveniles Delinquency Using Statistical Techniques

Juvenile delinquency also known juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. This paper is based on a research project in which the Juvenile delinquency is analyzed by researchers. A researcher has been collecting the data from internet (Website: ncrb.gov.in). This research aims to explore the educational background of the criminal along with the family background and their economic status which affects the juveniles or which results in the crime among juveniles. The present study leads to the conclusion that the low income of the family, family background (nuclear or joint or homeless), lack of parental supervision on their children is the main cause which is leading to the rise in this trend of delinquency

The pattern of medical clavicular epiphyseal ossification: preliminary study of a Sri Lankan population

Forensic Age Estimation (FAE) in living is required in many civil and criminal circumstances where documentary proof of age is unavailable. In Sri Lanka, 16-21 age range has many statutory age limits. Though international guidelines recommend CT scanning of medial clavicular epiphyses for forensic age estimations within this age range, Sri Lanka does not have any population-specific reference standards for this modality. The objective of this study was to describe the pattern of medial clavicular epiphyseal fusion among Sri Lankans aged 15-30 years. Chest, neck and pulmonary angiography CT scans of patients between 15-30 years performed in two tertiary hospitals were reported independently by two radiologists using the five-stage classification for medial clavicular ossification by Schmeling et al. (2004). Interobserver reliability was assessed using Cohen’s Kappa coefficient. A preliminary descriptive analysis of the first 46 cases was done using SPSS. There were 25 males and 21 females. Majority (80%) were 18 years and above. The oldest with stage 1 was 16 years. The youngest for stages 2 and 3 were both 17 years. Stages 4 and 5 were seen in 67% of cases and none were below 20 years. This trend was similar to previously published studies. From the preliminary results, it appears that only stages 4 and 5 can be used reliably to determine if a person is >18 years. Stages 2 and 3 are likely to indicate that the person is >16 years. Clavicular epiphyseal fusion shows good potential to be a reliable FAE method in Sri Lanka.

The influence of old-age retirement on health: Causal evidence from the Finnish register data

Abstract We quantify the impact of old-age retirement on health using longitudinal Finnish register data for the period 2000–2012. The data allows for a strict isolation of the effects of transition from work to retirement for both mental and physical health indicators. We use the lowest statutory eligibility age for full old-age pensions, 63 years, as an instrument in FE-IV estimation to ensure causal inference. We find that (1) retirement at age 63 moderately decreases the use of antidepressants, especially for women. The effect is sharp, while it is somewhat reversed in the later years; (2) the beneficial effects of retirement on the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal conditions are smaller and more diffused; (3) for occupational classes, our results show a reduction in antidepressant use for women in almost all occupations, whereas for men it is significant for manual workers and farmers; (4) we find stronger declines in the anti-depressant use among men and women who retire from low- and mid-income work, as well as more robust decrease in the risk of cardiovascular diseases for high-income and non-single; and (5) our test of external validity shows that the beneficial effects in antidepressant use can be extended to apply to most Finns retiring at ages 62–64.

Older adults’ integration in the labour market: a global view

AbstractWhat governs labour force participation in later life and why is it so different across countries? Health and labour force participation in older ages are not strongly linked, but we observe a large variation across countries in old-age labour force participation. This points to the important role of country-specific regulations governing pension receipt and old-age labour force participation. In addition to the statutory eligibility age for a pension, such country-specific regulations include: earnings tests that limit the amount of earnings when pension benefits are received; the amount of benefit deductions for early retirement; the availability of part-time pensions before normal retirement; special regulations that permit early retirement for certain population groups; and either subsidies or extra costs for employers if they keep older employees in their labour force. This paper asks two questions: Can we link a relatively low labour force participation at ages 60–64 to country-specific regulations that make early retirement attractive? and Can we link a relatively high labour force participation at ages 65–74 to country-specific regulations that make late retirement attractive? To answer these questions, we compared the experiences in a set of developed countries around the world in order to understand better the impact of country-specific rules and laws on work and retirement behaviour at older ages and, by consequence, on the financial sustainability of pension systems.

Protecting children from internet pornography? A critical assessment of statutory age verification and its enforcement in the UK

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to critically assess the newly created regulatory and policing regime for age-restricting access to pornography in the UK.Design/methodology/approachIt examines the pivotal legislation, policy and strategy documents, consultation submissions and interventions from a range of stakeholders such as children’s charities, content providers and privacy advocates.FindingsEven before its implementation, the regulatory regime betrays serious flaws and shortcomings in its framing and configuration. These difficulties include its inability to significantly curtail minors’ access to online pornography and risks of privacy violations and associated harms to legitimate users’ interests.Research limitations/implicationsRemedial measures are available so as to address some of the problems identified. However, it is argued that ultimately the attempt to prohibit minors from accessing such content is set to fail, and that alternative approaches – such as better equipping children through education to cope with explicit materials online – need to be given greater prominence.Originality/valueThis paper provides the first criminological policy analysis of this latest attempt to regulate and police online behaviour, and offers an important critical response to such efforts.

Behind the success of dominated personal pension plans: sales force and financial literacy factors

AbstractThe revealed preference for dominated insurance-based personal pension plans (PPPs) in Italy is a decade-long puzzle. I surmise that a motivation from the supply side is a sales force factor deriving from the geographical distribution of financial providers, including the countrywide network of the state controlled Post Office. I provide supporting evidence using three biennial waves of the Bank of Italy's survey on household finances from 2010 to 2014. The time interval includes a public pension system reform sharply raising the statutory age retirement, legislated in December 2011 to defuse a sovereign debt crisis. I show that the salience effect on the awareness of the benefits of supplementing lower perspective public pensions with PPPs increased the explanatory power of financial strength indicators. Exploiting a module in the 2010 wave I estimate a surprising decrease in the probability of subscription to PPPs in 2014 associated with the indicator for the highest financial literacy level.

Public Servants’ Response to the Terms and Conditions of Retirement in Uganda

Upon joining a firm, employees often find terms and conditions of retirement. They work for a wage, proportion of which is deferred into the future as retirement benefits; only accessed after some regulations have been fufilled. This paper uses a descriptive strategy to examine how employees in the public service in Uganda respond to the retirement conditions (mandatory age of exit, and minimum years of service), while measuring response to retirement conditions in binary form (voluntary early retirement, and retirement at age 60). Using data on retirees from the Pension Department of the Ministry of Public Service, results show that majority public servants in Uganda positively respond to the retirement rules. Majority retire at the statutory mandatory age. Moreso, the female employees, teachers, those not married, and those in upper salary scale. Also, there is an observed sharp strike in retirement at10 on the bar chart, after clocking the minimum years of service, a pointer to the early retirement condition. Such a response, particularly, by the different socioeconomic states of retirees, has implications on labor supply policies in the country.

Intention to Retire in Employees over 50 Years. What is the Role of Work Ability and Work Life Satisfaction?

Background: We investigated work ability and trajectories of work life satisfaction (WLS) as predictors of intention to retire (ITR) before the statutory age. Methods: Participants were Finnish postal service employees, who responded to surveys in 2016 and 2018 (n = 1466). Survey measures included ITR, work ability and WLS. Mixture modelling was used to identify trajectories of WLS. A generalized linear model was used to determine the measures of association (Risk Ratios, RR; 95% Confidence Intervals, CI) between exposures (work ability and WLS) and ITR. Results: Approximately 40% of respondents indicated ITR. Four distinct trajectories of WLS were identified: high (33%), moderate (35%), decreasing (23%) and low (9%). Participants with poor work ability (RR 1.79, 95% CI 1.40–2.29) and decreasing WLS (1.29, 1.13–1.46) were more likely to indicate an ITR early compared to the participants with excellent/good work ability and high WLS. Job control mediated the relationship between ITR and work ability (9.3%) and WLS (14.7%). Job support also played a similar role (14% and 20.6%). Conclusions: Work ability and WLS are important contributors to the retirement intentions of employees. Ensuring workers have appropriate support and control over their work are mechanisms through which organisations may encourage employees to remain at work for longer.