Gender, Status, and Tax Offenses

ABSTRACT

Current literature on tax evasion finds that compared to women, men are more likely to engage in tax evasion. This study examines how expectation states theory helps explain this gender difference by investigating the relationship between status and compliance to authority using a secondary analysis of ICPSR data on the Monitoring of Federal Criminal Sentences. We hypothesize that the effect of gender on the odds of being convicted for a tax offense compared to any other white collar crime will decrease when controlling for other diffuse status characteristics. Results from a series of multivariate regression models support this hypothesis.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bruce Reese

BRUCE REESE is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at Texas A&M University. His broad interests are in social psychology, criminology, deviance, and inequality. His most recent publication “Will Moving to a Better Neighborhood Help? Teenage Residential Mobility, Change of Context, and Young-Adult Educational Attainment” shows that upward mobility during adolescence had a small impact on long-term educational attainment; more importantly, upward mobility reduced African-Americans’ chances of completing high school. His dissertation, titled “Interactive Effects of Group Identity and Behavioral Variation on Altruistic Punishment of Free-Riding”, focuses on cooperation, sanctioning, and prosocial behavior with an experimental research design.

Mary K. McDougal

MARY K. MCDOUGAL is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at Texas A&M University. Her research interests include social psychology, public goods, deviance, and punishment. She received her B.A. in Anthropology/Sociology from Rhodes College and her M.A. in Sociology from the University of New Orleans.