Income, family structure, and child maltreatment risk
Introduction
Child maltreatment in the US has been closely linked to poverty, as well as to parental characteristics and caregiving environments that are associated with poverty. Currently, however, researchers have yet to fully understand these relationships or to identify the specific effects of income, family structure, and public policies on different types of maltreatment (e.g. physical, medical, emotional and the caregiving environment). Furthermore, economic models of child maltreatment have only recently begun to be developed and tested.
Such research may have important policy implications for US child and family policy, which has traditionally approached child maltreatment via separate mechanisms from poverty (Nelson, 1984, Kamerman, 1998/1999), and has been criticized for setting conflicting welfare and child welfare policies for families (Berrick, 1999a). Kamerman and Kahn (1993), for example, point out that most services for families in the US are oriented around child maltreatment investigations and that “few resources remain for troubled families who do not fall under the purview of CPS” (p. 42), as well as for families engaged in less serious child maltreatment cases (Kamerman and Kahn, 1993, Waldfogel, 1998). By better understanding the impacts of other public policies, particularly welfare benefit levels, on child maltreatment, we may gain insight into the pathways through which these policies may influence parental behaviors toward children through their effects on family income.
In this paper, I present a framework for examining the effects of income, family structure, and public policies on potential indicators of various forms of child maltreatment (i.e. child abuse and neglect), with a particular focus on child neglect (e.g. physical, medical, emotional and the caregiving environment). This framework is primarily anchored in economic theory of investments in children and distribution of resources within families. I test the resulting model using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). My results suggest that income and family structure affect a family's overall risk of maltreatment. Income impacts routine medical and dental care, the quality of the caregiving environment, and to a lesser extent, spanking behaviors. I also find that single-parent families and families with a biological mother and non-biological father figure tend have lower quality caregiving environments than mother–father families, and that single-mother families with working mothers are at even greater risk of poor caregiving. Finally, this analysis offers some tentative evidence that higher welfare benefits and lower unemployment rates may serve as protective factors for children.
Section snippets
Background
Relationships between income, family structure, public policies, and child maltreatment. Children from low-income families and low-income neighborhoods are more likely both to be reported to child welfare services and to be placed in foster care (Pelton, 1978, Garbarino and Sherman, 1980, Garbarino and Kostelny, 1992, Lindsey, 1994, Coulton, Korbin and Chow, 1995, Waldfogel, 2000). Both child maltreatment in general and child neglect, in particular, are highly correlated with poverty (Gil, 1970
Theoretical framework
This paper seeks to understand: (1) whether lower income families are more likely to be at risk of child maltreatment; (2) whether public policies that affect income and poverty affect child maltreatment risk; and (3) how family structure affects child maltreatment risk. In order to understand these relationships, I draw upon several existing economic theories.3
Data and methods
I use data from the Geographic Micro-Data and Child and Young Adults files of the NLSY. The sample consists of 17,871 complete observations of children between birth and 9-years old. Each child is observed in 1986, 1988, 1992, 1994, 1996 and 1998, which represent the years that the NLSY conducted child assessments.8
Results
Table 1 presents descriptive statistics. In terms of the maltreatment indicators, 27% of sample children did not have a medical check-up, and 51% did not have a dental check-up within the last 12 months. Approximately, 16% of these families scored in the bottom 10th percentile of the Cognitive Stimulation HOME subscale, and 15% in the bottom 10th percentile of the Emotional Support subscale. Just over 6% of children were spanked four or more times in the previous week. In terms of overall
Discussion and conclusions
The results of this analysis suggest that income, family structure, and the policy environment, may differentially impact various types of child maltreatment risk. In regard to income, the theoretical framework presented here suggests that families at lower incomes will be at greater risk of child maltreatment. I find that, after controlling for family characteristics, including maternal employment and health care coverage, income continues to positively impact three of five maltreatment
Acknowledgements
Notes: Funding for this project was provided in part by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Mental Health. I thank Chien Huang for providing the state level variables. I am grateful to Irwin Garfinkel, Sheila Kamerman and Brendan O'Flaherty for their helpful comments, to Christina Paxson for her advice and insightful comments on several drafts of this paper, and to Jane Waldfogel for her support, advice, and guidance throughout this
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