Gender Stratification and the Gender Gap in Homicide Victimization

This paper argues that variation in the gender gap in homicide victimization can be explained by temporal and cross-national variation in two dimensions of stratification: gender differences in roles and gender differences in status. A model of the gender gap in homicide is formulated and tested using pooled time-series data from 18 developed democracies for the period 1950-1980. A number of hypotheses derived from this model are supported by the analysis. In particular, we find that women's non-traditional roles decrease the gap between females' and males' risk of homicide victimization, but higher female status increases this gap. Furthermore, the adverse effect of women's non-traditional roles on female homicide appears to be limited to contexts of low female status.