Violent crime and female victimization: evidence from metropolitan regions in South Korea

In the economics of crime literature, victimization by crime has received less attention than the supply side of crime. This article investigates the relationship between violent crime and female victimization. We show that violent crime increases with both the overall female exposure and female proportion in the victim-target group. Potential interactions between these female characteristics and income inequality are also shown to influence the incidence of violent crime. Empirically, we introduce proxies for female characteristics that better reflect our hypotheses – for example, young unmarried female-headed households (for exposure to crime) and new job gains among females (for economic status). Using a panel of South Korean metropolitan regions, 2000–2011, we find that a certain limited change in these female characteristics could account for as much as 16% of violent crime.