Are women of all age groups equally affected by the shadow of sexual assault? Evidence from Germany

Abstract

Ample evidence suggests that women are more fearful of crime than men. The ‘shadow of sexual assault hypothesis’ offers a possible explanation for this gender gap: in patriarchal societies females are more afraid of sexual violence, which, in turn, drives their fear of other types of criminal victimization. Although the shadow hypothesis has received some empirical support, knowledge on the role of age in this context has remained scant. Therefore, the present study examines whether fear of sexual assault translates into fear of other offenses in all age segments of the female population, and whether the magnitude of this shadow effect varies with age. Statistical analyses are based on a large-scale random sample of women living in Germany. The findings suggest that although the proportion of women who are fearful of sexual assault declines with age, a shadow effect of this fear can be observed in all age groups. The ‘radiation effect’ of fear of sexual violence on fear of other crimes increases slightly with age. We interpret this interaction as result of older women's heightened vulnerability to many sorts of harm.

The sense of security of Ukrainians and Belarusians studying in Poland

“…Studies by Petherick [20] and Huang et al [15] show that male students feel safer, compared to women. This relationship is also confirmed by the research of Özaşçılar et al which shows that women are more afraid of crime than men [17,21,22]. The main reason for these differences in fear of crime between men and women is the belief that women are at greater risk of sexual assault, regardless of cultural differences [23,24].…”