Filicide in Australia
Graph of the Week
This week’s graphs illustrate sex-segregated data on the number of filicide victims and offenders in Australia from 2017-18 to 2022-23.
Are Sons or Daughters More Likely to be Killed by Their Parents?
• Each year, about 15 children are victims of filicide in Australia. Roughly the same numbers of sons and daughters are victims of filicide each year. Between 2017-18 to 2022-23, 44 sons and 38 daughters were victims of filicide in Australia.
Is Mom or Dad More Likely to Kill Their Children?
• Between 2017-18 to 2022-23, 45 filicides were committed by mom and 37 filicides were committed by dad.
Are Parents of One Sex More Likely to Kill Children of One Sex?
• When considering the interaction between the parent’s and child’s sex, the most notable result is that the least common parent-child combination for filicide is dad killing his daughter. Between 2017-2023, there were 14 cases of father-daughter filicide compared to 20-25 cases for the other three parent-child combinations.
Source: Data acquired from annual reports published by the Australian Institute of Criminology.
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Fascinating! Thanks Jim.
It's findings like this that makes me wonder about the stereotype that men are more physically aggressive than women.
Is it really a sex differential per se or merely that most people tend to only initiate physical violence against vulnerable targets and women are typically physically weaker and therefore have fewer potential targets than men?
Put another way, if we controlled for the usual size and strength differential between the sexes, would there still be a differential in physical aggression (and if so, would it instead be women with the higher rates of violence)? It looks like it might be that way, given these numbers when the victims are children (and therefore both men and women are comparatively larger and stronger than the vulnerable victims).