American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics
ISSN 1945-7782 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7790 (Online)
Family Formation and Crime
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
vol. 16,
no. 4, October 2024
(pp. 444–83)
Abstract
We perform a large-scale analysis of the impact of family formation on crime. For mothers, criminal arrests drop precipitously in the first few months of pregnancy, decreasing 50 percent overall. Men show a sustained 20 percent decline in crime that begins around pregnancy, although arrests for domestic violence spike at birth. A separate design using parents of stillborn children to estimate counterfactual arrest rates reinforces the main findings. Marriage, in contrast, is not associated with any sudden changes and marks the completion of a gradual 50 percent decline in arrests for both men and women.Citation
Massenkoff, Maxim, and Evan K. Rose. 2024. "Family Formation and Crime." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 16 (4): 444–83. DOI: 10.1257/app.20220751Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- J12 Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
- J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
- K42 Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
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