Does Rising Unemployment lead to increased Rape?

 The unemployed youth, turning to crime to find a vent for his frustration is a common motif in popular culture.

But is there really a co-relation between growing unemployment and an increase in sexual crimes? Maybe not.

If you look at recent years, there have certainly been two complementary trends- a increase in crimes against women, and a growing population of employed youth failing to find sustainable livelihood opportunities.

It is convenient to link the two.

Globally, there is a body of research on the positive and negative association between unemployment rate and crime. The Cantor and Land (1985) model studied two distinct and counteracting structural effects on the linkage between unemployment and crime against women: the motivational effect and the opportunity effect.

The positive association is predicted by assuming that reduced job prospects and increased income disparities can result in frustration which would in term lead to increased sexual crimes against women. Unemployment would also reduce the opportunity cost of facing the consequences of committing a crime. This is the ‘motivational’ effect.

The negative ‘opportunity’ perspective argues that since unemployed youth are more likely to spend time in or near their home, there have fewer opportunities to interact with vulnerable targets and therefore to commit crimes.

Globally, opportunity dominates motivation, and there is a negative association between rape and unemployment. Or to put it the other way, increase unemployment leads to fewer incidents of rape.

Prashansa Srivastava looked at data from 11 states (Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Odisha, Assam, Karnataka, Chattisgarh, Haryana and West Bengal) which contribute to 80% of reported rapes in India to analyse the relationship between unemployment and rape.

The data was very clear. Regions with higher unemployment reported a lower incidence of rape. Which means the opportunity perspective holds true even in India. Unemployment reduces the opportunity to come in contact with potential victims of rape.

This was supplemented by the fact that increased population density led to higher incidence of reported rape.

Interestingly, the data also showed that increased literacy levels had a positive co-relation with rape, but this could be explained by the fact that a higher level of literacy may increase the probability of the rape getting reported.

Most significantly, there was a strong co-relation between a higher Women Empowerment Index (WEI) score and reduced crimes against women.

This study conclusively proves that there is no link between unemployment and rape, and merely providing more employment opportunities will not bring down the incidence of rape and other crimes against women.

The only thing that will bring down rape is deconstructing the patriarchal mindset of society. States where with greater gender equality showed a reduction in rape.

Thus, instead of making excuses for youth and focusing on their frustrations, a concentrated effort needs to be made to improve the socioeconomic status of women through better access to health services and hygiene, safety from domestic violence, involvement in household decisions making, empowerment through ownership of land and amenities like cell phones and financial autonomy.

Till women are empowered and men are taught to accept women as their equals, sexual violence against women will continue, regardless of economic conditions.

The study can be accessed here - https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/uer/vol15/iss1/17/