Unhappiness and Crime: Evidence from South Africa

By Nattavudh Powdthavee. 2005

250 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper is the first of its kind to study quality of life responses of crime victims. Using cross-sectional data from the OHS97 survey of South Africa, we show that victims report significantly lower well-being than the non-victims, ceteris paribus. Happiness is lower for nonvictimized respondents currently living in higher crime areas. However, we find a strong evidence for females that criminal victimization hurts, but hurts less if the crime rate on our reference group is high.

Subfields: Health, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b4ccad854ee6ad2dd8f2078f4c710ae2147b6b3d

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Citations in the corpus

Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle? (2008, unknown): “…and Oswald (2004), Graham (2005), Oswald (1997), Frijters et al (2004, 2005), Senik (2004), Van Praag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell (2004), Shields and Wheatley Price (2005), Oswald and Powdthavee (2005, 2007), Propper et al (2005), Powdthavee (2005), Bell and Blanchflower (2007), and Uppal (2006).”
Death, Happiness, and the Calculation of Compensatory Damages (2008, unknown): “Cooter (2003) refers to our problem as the search for a “repugnant formula” and argues that in some legal settings there are things—such as dollars and the life of a child— that are incommensurable: “[T]he loss of a child is an extreme example of incompensable losses” (p. 1098).”
International Happiness: A New View on the Measure of Performance (2011, background): “…include Stack and Eshelman (1998), Lester (2002), Schyns (2002), Steel and Ones (2002), Hagerty and Veenhoven (2003), Fahey and Smyth (2004), Powdthavee (2005), Bray and Gunnell (2006), the tongue-in-cheek Christensen, Herskind , and Vaupel (2006), Vemuri and Constanza (2006), Blanchflower…”
Putting a price tag on friends, relatives, and neighbours: Using surveys of life satisfaction to value social relationships (2008, background): “This paper studies the numbers that people report when asked about how satisfied they are with their life.”
Happiness Decomposition: Female Optimism (2016, background): “…et al. 2003, Ferrer and Frijters 2004, Gandelman and Piani 2013, Gerdtham and Johannesson 2001, Hayo and Seifert 2003, Helliwell 2003, Oswald 1997, Powdthavee 2005, Seifert 2003, Senik 2004, Theodossio 1998 and Winkelmann and Winkelmann 1998), reaching a minimum approximately at midlife, between…”
The mystery of the U-shaped relationship between happiness and age (2012, unknown): “3 Recent papers on this in the economic literature include: (Bell & Blanchflower, 2007; Blanchflower, 2008; Blanchflower & Oswald, 2001; 2004; 2007; 2008; 2009; Clark, 2006; Dear, Henderson, & Korten, 2002; Di Tella, MacCulloch, & Oswald, 2001; Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Frijters, 2004; Ferrer-iCarbonell,”
Gross National Happiness As an Answer to the Easterlin Paradox (2008, background): “For a study of crime and happiness in South Africa, see Powdthavee (2005).”
Family Functioning and Life Satisfaction and Happiness in South African Households (2013, result): “As has been reported in many studies (e.g. Gerdtham and Johannesson 2001; Powdthavee 2005), a significant U-shaped relationship exists between age and happiness, and between age and life satisfaction.”
Crime, fear and subjective well-being: How victimization and street crime affect fear and life satisfaction (2013, background): “Regarding life satisfaction, economic theory and results from psychological studies suggest a stronger impact of victimization on satisfaction than the other way round (Davies and Hinks, 2009; Powdthavee, 2005).”
Using wellbeing for public policy: Theory, measurement, and recommendations (2016, background): “The same rationale applies for health, the negative impacts of illness on freedom and autonomy, and the monetization of health to inform public policy (Powdthavee, 2005; Powdthavee & Van den Berg, 2011).”
A test for the convexity of human well-being over the life cycle: Longitudinal evidence from a 20-year panel (2011, background): “…Oswald, 2004; Clark and Oswald, 1996; Di Tella et al., 2001, 2003; Oswald, 1994; Oswald and Powdthavee, 2007, 2008a,b; Winkelmann and Winkelmann, 1998), as well as for transitioning and developing countries (Fafchamps and Shilpi, 2008; Powdthavee, 2003, 2005; Sanfey and Teksoz, 2007; Senik, 2004).”