While it is generally argued that a stronger labor market is negatively associated with crime, there exists a “consensus of doubt” around the relationship between employment and crime. This paper examines the impact of the rise of female labor participation in manufacturing on various types of crimes in Mexico from 1998 to 2012. A fixed effects specification and an instrumental variable approach with regional and time fixed effects are employed to compare the crime rates in municipalities that were heavily exposed to local factory openings to municipalities that did not receive a labor shock of the same magnitude. By introducing a gender component in the analysis, we provide evidence of a gender differential impact of employment on various forms of crime. Our findings shed the light on the importance of gender in the crime-employment relationship and inform policy makers interested in designing crime prevention programs.
","abstract_html":"<p>While it is generally argued that a stronger labor market is negatively associated with crime, there exists a “consensus of doubt” around the relationship between employment and crime. This paper examines the impact of the rise of female labor participation in manufacturing on various types of crimes in Mexico from 1998 to 2012. A fixed effects specification and an instrumental variable approach with regional and time fixed effects are employed to compare the crime rates in municipalities that were heavily exposed to local factory openings to municipalities that did not receive a labor shock of the same magnitude. By introducing a gender component in the analysis, we provide evidence of a gender differential impact of employment on various forms of crime. Our findings shed the light on the importance of gender in the crime-employment relationship and inform policy makers interested in designing crime prevention programs.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Bamona, Christelle K"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Science in International and Development Economics (MSIDEC)","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Economics","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Yaniv Stopnitzky","Jesse Anttila-Hughes"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2017,"date_issued":"2017-05-19T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2017-05-19T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:44:00Z","subjects":["Maquiladoras","Maquila","Crime","Becker","employment","labor","Econometrics","Labor Economics"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://repository.usfca.edu/thes/229","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Yaniv Stopnitzky","Jesse Anttila-Hughes"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Bamona, Christelle K"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2018-05-30T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Economics"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Science in International and Development Economics (MSIDEC)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Maquiladoras","Maquila","Crime","Becker","employment","labor","Econometrics","Labor Economics"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://repository.usfca.edu/thes/229"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["While it is generally argued that a stronger labor market is negatively associated with crime, there exists a “consensus of doubt” around the relationship between employment and crime. This paper examines the impact of the rise of female labor participation in manufacturing on various types of crimes in Mexico from 1998 to 2012. A fixed effects specification and an instrumental variable approach with regional and time fixed effects are employed to compare the crime rates in municipalities that were heavily exposed to local factory openings to municipalities that did not receive a labor shock of the same magnitude. By introducing a gender component in the analysis, we provide evidence of a gender differential impact of employment on various forms of crime. Our findings shed the light on the importance of gender in the crime-employment relationship and inform policy makers interested in designing crime prevention programs.
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