Scaring or Scarring? Labour Market Effects of Criminal Victimisation

Anna Bindler and Nadine Ketel

No 12082, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Little is known about the costs of crime to victims and their families. In this paper, we use unique and detailed register data on victimisations and labour market outcomes from the Netherlands to overcome data restrictions previously met in the literature and estimate event-study designs to assess the short- and long-term effects of criminal victimisation. Our results show significant decreases in earnings (6.6-9.3%) and increases in the days of benefit receipt (10.4-14.7%) which are lasting up to eight years after victimisation. We find shorter-lived responses in health expenditure. Additional analyses suggest that the victimisation can be interpreted as an escalation point, potentially triggering subsequent adverse life-events which contribute to its persistent impact. Heterogeneity analyses show that the effects are slightly larger for males regarding earnings and significantly larger for females regarding benefits. These differences appear to be largely (but not completely) driven by different offence characteristics. Lastly, we investigate spill-over effects on nonvictimised partners and find evidence for a spill-over effect of violent threat on the partner's earnings.

Keywords: crime; victimisation; labour market outcomes; event-study design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 J01 J12 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58 pages
Date: 2019-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab, nep-law and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published - published in: Journal of Labor Economics, 2022, 40 (4), 939-970

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https://docs.iza.org/dp12082.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Scaring or Scarring? Labor Market Effects of Criminal Victimization (2022)
Working Paper: Scaring or scarring? Labour market effects of criminal victimisation (2020)
Working Paper: Scaring or scarring? Labour market effects of criminal victimisation (2019)
Working Paper: Scaring or scarring? Labour market effects of criminal victimisation (2019)
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