Barking up the wrong tree

Looks like it. The Crime Economist has a new blog post that makes the case:

Even in a setting where the tasks are relatively low skill and the work is independent of employer or customer discrimination, women still appear to earn less than men. If we compare not total amount stolen per crime, but amount stolen per offender the earnings gap between men and women grows even wider since women are more likely to commit crimes with others.

Why might women have lower criminal earnings than men? Women tend to be more risk averse than men. In crime it is likely that greater earnings come with greater risks. Some of this greater risk aversion may be a response to greater risks. Since there are fewer female criminals, it may be easier to catch a women that is identified as female than it would be to catch a man. Women may also have fewer opportunities to accumulate criminal human capital, since much of the knowledge of how to be a criminal is shared from person to person and a woman's social circle may contain fewer other criminals to learn from.

Read the whole piece. I also recommend following him on Twitter.

Do you think women will ever match men in the crime arena?  Post a comment.

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