Effects of Welfare Reform on Women's Crime

Hope Corman, Dhaval Dave and Nancy E. Reichman

No 18887, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We investigate the effects of broad-based work incentives on female crime by exploiting the welfare reform legislation of the 1990s, which dramatically increased employment among women at risk for relying on cash assistance. We find that welfare reform decreased female property crime arrests by 4-5%, but did not affect other types of crimes. The effects appear to be stronger in states with lower welfare benefits and higher earnings disregards, and in states with larger caseload declines. The findings point to broad-based work incentives--and, by inference, employment--as a key determinant of female property crime.

JEL-codes: H53 I3 J22 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-law
Note: CH EH LE LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as Corman, Hope & Dave, Dhaval M. & Reichman, Nancy E., 2014. "Effects of welfare reform on women's crime," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-14.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18887.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Effects of welfare reform on women's crime (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18887

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18887

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().