The Shadow of the Financial Crisis: Socio-Economic and Welfare Policy Development and Fear of Crime in Europe. A Random Effects Within-Between Model Analysis of the European Social Survey, 2002–2018

Lisa Marie Natter ()
Additional contact information
Lisa Marie Natter: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2025, vol. 176, issue 2, No 2, 473-498

Abstract: Abstract Previous cross-sectional research has found large cross-country differences in crime-related feelings of insecurity associated not with crime rates but with welfare state policies reflecting that fear of crime serves as an expression of generalized social insecurities. The financial crisis plunged European societies into a period of severe socio-economic insecurities. Against this backdrop, I use hybrid multilevel models to test hypotheses if changes in socio-economic conditions and social policies – in particular following the 2008 financial crisis – have affected feelings of insecurity in 27 European countries, using nine rounds of the European Social Survey. Most indicators except the homicide rate did not show significant effects on fear of crime in the longitudinal dimension. The consequences of the financial crisis for people’s well-being did not extend to fear of crime. Social expenditures in-kind for families and children showed the strongest association with fear of crime cross-sectionally but may lack the necessary country-level variation over time to produce significant effects. Mirroring research on generalized trust, fear of crime seems relatively stable over time and deeply associated with welfare state institutions.

Keywords: Fear of crime; Financial crisis; Multilevel models; Europe; Welfare state; Cross-national comparison (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-024-03460-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:spr:soinre:v:176:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s11205-024-03460-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-024-03460-2

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().