Stigmatising Prostitution: Some Evidence from the UK

Francesca Bettio (), Marina Della Giusta (), Maria Di Tommaso () and Sarah Jewell
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Francesca Bettio: Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Siena

No em-dp2016-13, Economics Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of Reading

Abstract: The question of how to regulate prostitution and whether it is or not a criminal activity has long been debated, and social norms around the sex industry both underpin and reflect the views of participants in the industry as well as those of society: prostitution is seen by some as an activity to be condemned and others as a part of the entertainment industry. Here we present economic models of paid sex and show to what extent they help understand this activity, as well as how they differ from models of crime, and discuss how these models can be used to analyise policy and to what extent they predict what is observed empirically. We then discuss what happens when criminalising prostitution, making use of changes in legislation in the United Kingdom, which moved from a relatively permissive regime under the Wolfenden Report of 1960, to a much harder line of aiming to crack down on porsitution with the Prostitution (Public Places) Scotland Act 2007 and the Policing and Crime Act of 2009 in England and Wales. We make use of two waves of the British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal2, conducted in 2000-2001 and Natsal3, conducted in 2010-2012) to investigate the effects of criminalisation on both the amount and composition of demand, and draw some implications on the welfare effects of considering prostitution a form of crime.

JEL-codes: C35 J16 J22 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2016-12-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
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