Labor Stratification and Violent Crime

This paper uses dual labor market theory to examine the relationships between the structure of labor in census tracts, economic indicators, and violent crime. It tests the thesis that relationships between poverty, income inequality, and violent crime are affected by the distribution of workers into the primary and secondary sectors of the labor market. The results indicate that when three measures of the conditions of employment are controlled, the association between the poverty rate and the overall violent crime index is reduced, and that the relationship between income inequality and violent crime rates is limited to murder rates. The implications of these results for future research on social economy and violent crime are discussed.