Impacts of Workplace Violence: The Role of Inequality

In 2011 the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) reported that of people who are employed and aged 16 and older, 24% of nonfatal violent incidents happened at work. To understand the magnitude of the problem, from 2005 to 2009, 572,000 nonfatal workplace crimes occurred against people aged 16 or older. Annually, the rate of workplace violence was about 5 victimizations per 1,000 employed persons aged 16 and older (Harrell 2011). The impact of crime on victims is a topic that deserves attention because it extends our understanding beyond descriptive rates of violence. Workplace victimization, like most other types of victimizations can have far-reaching effects that extend from individuals to communities and society. This study investigates incidents of workplace violence in the United States through a theoretical lens of inequality. More specifically, do social demographics like gender, race, age, and occupation predict impacts to productivity, from the perspective of the victim? Longitudinal data from the NCVS for the years 1993 through 2014 are used to model Negative Binomial Regressions for count data and Ordinary Least Squares Regressions for expenditure data. The results suggest that the type of crime and being employed in high-risk occupations are the strongest predictors of experiencing adverse impacts as a result of workplace victimization