The Effect of Local Crime on Well-Being: Evidence for Germany

Abstract

This series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science.The decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly.Any opinions expressed in this series are those of the author(s) and not those of DIW Berlin. Research disseminated by DIW Berlin may include views on public policy issues, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions.The SOEPpapers are available at http://www.diw.de/soeppapers Editors:Jürgen Schupp (Sociology) AbstractThis paper investigates the effect of local crime on well-being in Germany, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and a novel data set constructed from official police crime statistics, covering both counties and urban districts for the time period between 1994 and 2012. We find that local area crime has a significantly negative impact on life satisfaction, makes residents worry more frequently, and worry more about crime in Germany. In particular, a 1% increase in the crime frequency ratio results in a 0.043 standard deviation decrease in life satisfaction. This effect is driven almost exclusively by violent crimes, while property crimes and other crimes have no significant impact on well-being.

Wellbeing and Society: Towards Quantification of the Co-benefits of Wellbeing

“…For example, Cornaglia et al (2014) use data for Australia and conclude that an increase in violent crime in an area leads to a significant reduction in community wellbeing, this being much higher than the effect of property crime. Similar results are found also for Germany by Krekel and Poprawe (2014).…”

The greener, the happier? The effect of urban land use on residential well-being

“…The authors report an increase of roughly 19% for violent crime once dwellings become vacant. Although these studies do not directly investigate the effect of vacant or abandoned areas on life satisfaction, they still suggest that vacant or abandoned areas are associated with lower life satisfaction, in particular for residents that are more vulnerable, as health and safety are important determinants of subjective well-being (see, for example, Krekel and Poprawe (2014) and Dustmann and Fasani (2015)).…”

Socioeconomic Factors Affecting Individuals' Life Satisfaction: Dynamic Panel Data Analysis for Selected Oecd Countries

“…It has been determined that unemployment and inflation affect the life satisfaction of individuals negatively and the gross domestic product affects positively. Krekel and Poprawe (2014) investigated the relationship between crime and life satisfaction within the scope of well-being for Germany using the data of the German Socio-Economic Panel for the period 1994-2012 via the fixed effects method. It was determined that while violent crimes had a negative effect on life satisfaction, crimes against property and other types of crimes had no effect on life satisfaction.…”