Economic Conditions and Child Abuse
by Jason M. Lindo, Jessamyn Schaller, Benjamin Hansen – #18994 (CH HE LE LS)
Abstract:
Although a huge literature spanning several disciplines documents an
association between poverty and child abuse, researchers have not
found persuasive evidence that economic downturns increase abuse,
despite their impacts on family income. In this paper, we address
this seeming contradiction. Using county-level child abuse data
spanning 1996 to 2009 from the California Department of Justice, we
estimate the extent to which a county’s reported abuse rate diverges
from its trend when its economic conditions diverge from trend,
controlling for statewide annual shocks. The results of this
analysis indicate that overall measures of economic conditions are
not strongly related to rates of abuse. However, focusing on overall
measures of economic conditions masks strong opposing effects of
economic conditions facing males and females: male layoffs increase
rates of abuse whereas female layoffs reduce rates of abuse. These
results are consistent with a theoretical framework that builds on
family-time-use models and emphasizes differential risks of abuse
associated with a child’s time spent with different caregivers.
http://papers.nber.org/papers/W18994?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw


