IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/femeco/v14y2008i3p51-75.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sources of crime in the state of Veracruz: The role of female labor force participation and wage inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Lorenzo Blanco
  • Sandra Villa

Abstract

In recent years, crime has become a serious concern in Mexico as its increase has detrimentally affected government institutions and economic growth. There is considerable speculation among policy analysts about the causes of the increase in crime. Whereas some analysts attribute the increase to a rise in income inequality, others believe internal migration and a loss of morals are the roots of criminal behavior. This research shows that at least for the Mexican state of Veracruz, wage inequality and labor force participation have an important impact on crime. When gender is considered, however, the impact is more complicated than it seems. An increase in women's labor force participation decreases the overall number of alleged violent offenders. However, the number of alleged rapists and grievous bodily harm offenders increases as women's wage distribution improves. The results shed light on the gender dimensions of the economics of crime.

Suggested Citation

  • Lorenzo Blanco & Sandra Villa, 2008. "Sources of crime in the state of Veracruz: The role of female labor force participation and wage inequality," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 51-75.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:14:y:2008:i:3:p:51-75
    DOI: 10.1080/13545700802075143
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13545700802075143
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13545700802075143?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Baharom, A.H. & Habibullah, M.S., 2008. "Crime and Income Inequality: The Case of Malaysia," MPRA Paper 11871, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Jonck, Petronella & Goujon, Anne & Testa, Maria Rita & Kandala, John, 2015. "Education and crime engagement in South Africa: A national and provincial perspective," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 141-151.
    3. Awais Anwar & Noman Arshed & Sofia Anwar, 2017. "Socio-economic Determinants of Crime: An Empirical Study of Pakistan," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 7(1), pages 312-322.
    4. Yu Liu & Thomas M. Fullerton Jr. & Nathan J. Ashby, 2013. "Assessing The Impacts Of Labor Market And Deterrence Variables On Crime Rates In Mexico," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(4), pages 669-690, October.
    5. Sarma, Nayantara, 2022. "Domestic violence and workfare: An evaluation of India’s MGNREGS," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economics of crime; gender wage inequality; women's labor-force participation; JEL Codes: J16; J31; O54;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:14:y:2008:i:3:p:51-75. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RFEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.