I've previously written about the positive impacts of decriminalising prostitution (see here and here). However, most studies on this have been conducted in developed countries. In a new article published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (possibly ungated earlier version here), Lisa Cameron (University of Melbourne, and no relation to me), Jennifer Seager (George Washington University), and Manisha Shah (UCLA) look at a peculiar case in Indonesia. As they explain:
The study area encompasses the districts of Malang, Pasuruan, and Batu in East Java, Indonesia... As is common throughout Indonesia, sex work in East Java occurs in both formal worksites (i.e., brothels) and informal worksites (i.e., the street)...
On July 11, 2014, the Malang district government announced that on November 28, 2014, it would close all formal sex worksites within the district as a “birthday present” to Malang...
The announcement of the worksite closures was unanticipated. To the best of our knowledge, when we conducted baseline surveys in February–March 2014, there was no expectation of the closures. In fact, we had considered conducting the research (which was originally planned to be a randomized controlled trial offering micro-savings products to sex workers) in Surabaya but had been advised by the community-based organization we were working with, whose main mission is to work with sex workers in the Malang area, that worksite closures were possible in Surabaya. We specifically selected Malang as our study site because worksite closures were not anticipated.
I guess this was a case of the researchers making the best of a bad situation. Cameron et al. started out intending to research one thing, but ended up researching something completely different (incidentally, there's been a lot of that over the last year, due to coronavirus lockdowns or just the pandemic generally).
Anyway, Cameron et al. had collected some baseline data before the criminalisation, and collected data after the criminalisation, allowing them to apply a difference-in-differences analysis. Essentially, this involves comparing the difference between Malang and the other two districts before criminalisation, with the difference between Malang and the other two districts after criminalisation. They find that:
...criminalizing sex work increases STI rates among sex workers (measured using biological test results) by 27.3 percentage points, or 58%, from baseline. Using data from both clients and sex workers, we show that the main mechanism driving the increase in STI [sexually transmitted infection] rates is a decrease in access to condoms, an increase in condom prices, and an increase in noncondom sex. Sex workers are more than 50 percentage points less likely to be able to produce a condom when asked by survey enumerators at endline, and clients report a 61 percentage point increase in noncondom sex.
None of that is good, and it extends to those that left sex work as well, and their children:
Using data obtained from tracking women who left sex work postcriminalization, we show that those who leave sex work because of criminalization have lower earnings than those who leave by choice. In addition, children of women from criminalized worksites are adversely affected—they have less money for school and are more likely to work to supplement household income.
The criminalisation also impacts the general population:
...there is a statistically significant... increase in female reports of experiencing STI symptoms in the past three months. This is consistent with a scenario in which increased STI rates among sex workers at the criminalized worksites translate into higher STI rates among clients, who then pass these STIs on to their sexual partners.
The sex market was smaller as a result of criminalisation, which was the intention of the policy. However, the unintended consequences are severe. As Cameron et al. conclude:
...from a health perspective, criminalization of sex work is likely to be counterproductive.
Indeed.
[HT: Marginal Revolution, for the working paper version last year]
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