Effects of welfare reform on women's crime

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 base the analyses on the supply of crime model in the human capital literature which emphasizes the importance of employment prospects in the legal and illegal labor markets. We find suggestive evidence that welfare reform decreased female arrests for property crimes (by 4–5%), but that it did not affect arrests for other types of crimes. The effects appear to be stronger in states with larger welfare caseload declines. As welfare reform policies are targeted to females, it is empirically validating that we do not find any substantively or statistically significant effects of welfare reform on crime among males. The findings point to broad-based work incentives—and, by inference, employment—as an important determinant of female property crime.