IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v144y2019i1d10.1007_s11205-018-2042-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Victimization and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from a High Crime Country

Author

Listed:
  • Nekeisha Spencer

    (University of the West Indies)

  • Zhonghui Liu

    (Binghamton University)

Abstract

This study quantifies the relationship between crime and life satisfaction for Jamaica, a country that records the highest rates for violent crimes relative to the rest of the world and has one of the highest regional crime expenditure. We utilize individual-level survey data from 2006–2014 that capture victimization and other characteristics related to life satisfaction. Controlling for potential confounders reveals that crime is significantly and negatively related to life satisfaction. More importantly, we find that for this high-crime country, the cost to life satisfaction of being a crime victim amounts to roughly 65% of annual household expenditure. We also find heterogeneous effects for reported assault and robbery even though only the monetary losses incurred from assault are economically significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Nekeisha Spencer & Zhonghui Liu, 2019. "Victimization and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from a High Crime Country," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 475-495, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:144:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-018-2042-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-018-2042-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-018-2042-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-018-2042-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. B. Mak Arvin & Byron Lew, 2011. "Are foreign aid and migrant remittances sources of happiness in recipient countries?," International Journal of Public Policy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 7(4/5/6), pages 282-300.
    2. Simon Davies & Tim Hinks, 2010. "Crime and Happiness Amongst Heads of Households in Malawi," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 457-476, August.
    3. Cheng, Zhiming & Smyth, Russell, 2015. "Crime victimization, neighborhood safety and happiness in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 424-435.
    4. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2002. "What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 402-435, June.
    5. Kingdon, Geeta Gandhi & Knight, John, 2004. "Unemployment in South Africa: The Nature of the Beast," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 391-408, March.
    6. Gupta, Sanjeev & Pattillo, Catherine A. & Wagh, Smita, 2009. "Effect of Remittances on Poverty and Financial Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 104-115, January.
    7. Adams, Richard Jr. & Page, John, 2005. "Do international migration and remittances reduce poverty in developing countries?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(10), pages 1645-1669, October.
    8. Robert J. MacCulloch & Rafael Di Tella & Andrew J. Oswald, 2001. "Preferences over Inflation and Unemployment: Evidence from Surveys of Happiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 335-341, March.
    9. Clark, Andrew E & Oswald, Andrew J, 1994. "Unhappiness and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(424), pages 648-659, May.
    10. Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2010. "How much does money really matter? Estimating the causal effects of income on happiness," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 77-92, August.
    11. Dolan, Paul & Peasgood, Tessa & White, Mathew, 2008. "Do we really know what makes us happy A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 94-122, February.
    12. Stéphane Mahuteau & Rong Zhu, 2016. "Crime Victimisation and Subjective Well‐Being: Panel Evidence From Australia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(11), pages 1448-1463, November.
    13. Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2005. "Unhappiness and Crime: Evidence from South Africa," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 72(287), pages 531-547, August.
    14. Cahit Guven & Bent Sørensen, 2012. "Subjective Well-Being: Keeping Up with the Perception of the Joneses," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 109(3), pages 439-469, December.
    15. Acosta, Pablo & Fajnzylber, Pablo & Lopez, J. Humberto, 2007. "The impact of remittances on poverty and human capital : evidence from Latin American household surveys," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4247, The World Bank.
    16. Alex Michalos & Bruno Zumbo, 2000. "Criminal Victimization and the Quality of Life," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 245-295, June.
    17. Paul Frijters & John P. Haisken-DeNew & Michael A. Shields, 2004. "Money Does Matter! Evidence from Increasing Real Income and Life Satisfaction in East Germany Following Reunification," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 730-740, June.
    18. D. Shin & D. Johnson, 1978. "Avowed happiness as an overall assessment of the quality of life," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 475-492, March.
    19. Romero Dario, 2014. "Insecurity or Perception of Insecurity? Urban Crime and Dissatisfaction with Life: Evidence from the Case of Bogotá," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 169-208, January.
    20. Mark A. Cohen, 2008. "The Effect of Crime on Life Satisfaction," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(S2), pages 325-353, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mohammad Reza Farzanegan & Sven Fischer, 2023. "The Effect of the “Woman Life Freedom” Protests on Life Satisfaction in Iran: Evidence from Survey Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 10643, CESifo.
    2. Vinicius V. Zanchi & Philipp Ehrl & Daniel T. G. N. Maciel, 2021. "Direct and Indirect Effects of Individualism and Institutions on Homicides," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 1167-1195, February.
    3. Chenevier, Randall & Piper, Alan T. & Willis, Craig, 2021. "Migration, crime and life satisfaction in Chile: Pre and post-migration evidence," MPRA Paper 106502, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Iddisah Sulemana, 2015. "The Effect of Fear of Crime and Crime Victimization on Subjective Well-Being in Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 849-872, April.
    2. Mattheus Brenig & Till Proeger, 2018. "Putting a Price Tag on Security: Subjective Well-Being and Willingness-to-Pay for Crime Reduction in Europe," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 145-166, January.
    3. Christopher L Ambrey & Christopher M Fleming & Matthew Manning, 2013. "The life satisfaction approach to estimating the cost of crime: An individual's willingness-to-pay for crime reduction," Discussion Papers in Economics economics:201301, Griffith University, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics.
    4. Hinks, Timothy, 2020. "Bribery, motivations for bribery and life satisfaction in transitional countries," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    5. Douhou, Salima & Van Soest, Arthur, 2013. "Explaining subjective well-being: The role of victimization, trust, health, and social norms," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 52-78.
    6. Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2012. "Jobless, Friendless and Broke: What Happens to Different Areas of Life Before and After Unemployment?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 79(315), pages 557-575, July.
    7. Christopher Ambrey & Christopher Fleming & Matthew Manning, 2014. "Perception or Reality, What Matters Most When it Comes to Crime in Your Neighbourhood?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 119(2), pages 877-896, November.
    8. Brenig, Mattheus & Proeger, Till, 2016. "Putting a price tag on security: Subjective well-being and willingness-to-pay for crime reduction in Europe," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 278, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    9. Martinique Cordeiro & Prudence Kwenda & Miracle Ntuli, 2020. "Crime and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from South Africa - Gauteng Province," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 15(3), pages 715-736, July.
    10. Byela Tibesigwa & Martine Visser & Brennan Hodkinson, 2016. "Effects of Objective and Subjective Income Comparisons on Subjective Wellbeing," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 361-389, August.
    11. Cheng, Zhiming & Smyth, Russell, 2015. "Crime victimization, neighborhood safety and happiness in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 424-435.
    12. Andrew E. Clark, 2018. "Four Decades of the Economics of Happiness: Where Next?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 245-269, June.
    13. Frijters, Paul & Beatton, Tony, 2012. "The mystery of the U-shaped relationship between happiness and age," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 525-542.
    14. Cordero, José Manuel & Salinas-Jiménez, Javier & Salinas-Jiménez, M Mar, 2017. "Exploring factors affecting the level of happiness across countries: A conditional robust nonparametric frontier analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(2), pages 663-672.
    15. Timothy Hinks & Carola Gruen, 2007. "What is the Structure of South African Happiness Equations? Evidence from Quality of Life Surveys," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 82(2), pages 311-336, June.
    16. Roberta Distante, 2013. "Subjective Well-Being, Income and Relative Concerns in the UK," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 81-105, August.
    17. Leonardo Becchetti & Alessandra Pelloni, 2013. "What are we learning from the life satisfaction literature?," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 60(2), pages 113-155, June.
    18. Popova, Olga, 2014. "Can religion insure against aggregate shocks to happiness? The case of transition countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 804-818.
    19. Ebrahim, Amina, 2010. "The Determinants Of Happiness Among Race Groups In South Africa," Honours Students' Projects 107588, Rhodes University, Department of Economics and Economic History.
    20. Antje Mertens & Miriam Beblo, 2016. "Self-Reported Satisfaction and the Economic Crisis of 2007–2010: Or How People in the UK and Germany Perceive a Severe Cyclical Downturn," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 125(2), pages 537-565, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:144:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-018-2042-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.