Income inequality and fear of crime across the European region

Christin-Melanie Vauclair; Boyka Bratanova

doi:10.1177/1477370816648993

Income inequality and fear of crime across the European region

Christin-Melanie Vauclair
, Boyka Bratanova

Centre for Research into Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This paper aims to take a holistic approach on studying fear of crime by
testing predictors at multiple levels of analyses. Data from the European
Social Survey (N = 56,752 from 29 countries) were used to test and
extend the Income Inequality and Sense of Vulnerability Hypotheses. The
findings confirm that (1) individuals in societies with greater income
inequalities are more fearful of crime, and (2) older or disabled people as
well as women report greater fear of crime. Contrary to the hypotheses,
ethnic majority and not ethnic minority members report greater fear of
crime, if they reside in high income inequality countries. It is further
demonstrated that fear of crime explains the inverse association between
income inequality and subjective well-being in this particular subsample.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	221-241
Number of pages	21
Journal	European Journal of Criminology
Volume	14
Issue number	2
Early online date	22 May 2016
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370816648993
Publication status	Published - 1 Mar 2017

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities
SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Keywords

Cross-national comparisons
European Social Survey
Fear of crime
Income inequality
Multilevel analyses
Subjective well-being

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10.1177/1477370816648993Licence: CC BY

European Journal of Criminology-2016-Vauclair-1477370816648993_CC
(c) The authors. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Final published version, 220 KBLicence: CC BY

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title = "Income inequality and fear of crime across the European region",

abstract = "This paper aims to take a holistic approach on studying fear of crime by testing predictors at multiple levels of analyses. Data from the European Social Survey (N = 56,752 from 29 countries) were used to test and extend the Income Inequality and Sense of Vulnerability Hypotheses. The findings confirm that (1) individuals in societies with greater income inequalities are more fearful of crime, and (2) older or disabled people as well as women report greater fear of crime. Contrary to the hypotheses, ethnic majority and not ethnic minority members report greater fear of crime, if they reside in high income inequality countries. It is further demonstrated that fear of crime explains the inverse association between income inequality and subjective well-being in this particular subsample.",

keywords = "Cross-national comparisons, European Social Survey, Fear of crime, Income inequality, Multilevel analyses, Subjective well-being",

author = "Christin-Melanie Vauclair and Boyka Bratanova",

note = "Funding for this study was provided by a Marie Curie Fellowship (PIRG08-GA-2010-276809) to the first author. ",

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N2 - This paper aims to take a holistic approach on studying fear of crime by testing predictors at multiple levels of analyses. Data from the European Social Survey (N = 56,752 from 29 countries) were used to test and extend the Income Inequality and Sense of Vulnerability Hypotheses. The findings confirm that (1) individuals in societies with greater income inequalities are more fearful of crime, and (2) older or disabled people as well as women report greater fear of crime. Contrary to the hypotheses, ethnic majority and not ethnic minority members report greater fear of crime, if they reside in high income inequality countries. It is further demonstrated that fear of crime explains the inverse association between income inequality and subjective well-being in this particular subsample.

AB - This paper aims to take a holistic approach on studying fear of crime by testing predictors at multiple levels of analyses. Data from the European Social Survey (N = 56,752 from 29 countries) were used to test and extend the Income Inequality and Sense of Vulnerability Hypotheses. The findings confirm that (1) individuals in societies with greater income inequalities are more fearful of crime, and (2) older or disabled people as well as women report greater fear of crime. Contrary to the hypotheses, ethnic majority and not ethnic minority members report greater fear of crime, if they reside in high income inequality countries. It is further demonstrated that fear of crime explains the inverse association between income inequality and subjective well-being in this particular subsample.

KW - Cross-national comparisons

KW - European Social Survey

KW - Fear of crime

KW - Income inequality

KW - Multilevel analyses

KW - Subjective well-being

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DO - 10.1177/1477370816648993

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JO - European Journal of Criminology

JF - European Journal of Criminology

IS - 2

ER -

Income inequality and fear of crime across the European region

Abstract

UN SDGs

Keywords

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