The gender gap in crime is decreasing, but who’s growing equal to whom?

Abstract

The declining gender gap in crime, observed in many Western countries, including Sweden, is often interpreted as showing an alarming shift in the offending of young women. Explanations to the observed pattern are often based on an assumption that women are increasingly coming to mimic the criminal behaviour of men, while we in this essay argue that to the extent behavioural change is at play, it is rather the other way around: men mimic women’s behaviour.