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Childhood Bullying and Labor Market Outcomes in The United States

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Abstract

This paper contributes to a nascent economic literature on bullying. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 data, I explored the relationship between childhood bullying and later earnings. Since males and females are usually subject to different kinds of bullying and coping strategies vary with age, I distinguished between pre-teen and teenage bullying by gender. After delineating the pathways by which being bullied could potentially lead to lower earnings, the analysis first considered the probability of being bullied either as a teenager or before the age of 12. Next, after a simple ordinary least squares analysis of a human capital earnings function, a detailed propensity score analysis with multiple matching schemes was undertaken separately for males and females, further subdivided by when bullying had occurred. Results indicated males bullied as teenagers had earnings 23% lower than their non-bullied counterparts. Females did not suffer this penalty, nor did children who were bullied only below the age of 12. However, being bullied in childhood increased significantly the probability of being bullied later. In terms of human capital formation and possible impact on later productivity, teen bullying may be affecting men the most. Current findings may also be useful in encouraging a targeted focus on those who may be in greater danger of being bullied. Children who have changed schools several times, males with a learning disability, or a vision, speech or hearing problem, and females with some kind of deformity would be targeted significantly more.

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Notes

  1. This definition was updated in January 2014 after the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Department of Education (ED) consulted with bullying experts. Even in the new definition, the three important constituent elements are still present. With the new definition, the HRSA, CDC and ED wish to make clear that children are not to be labeled as ‘bullies’ or ‘victims’. Instead, it is the behavior that needs to be labeled. (Gladden et al. 2014; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2017).

  2. It may be mentioned that though commonly used in the literature, the term “victim” has a negative connotation and the term “survivor” is often preferred by many psychologists and therapists. (Powell and Ladd 2010; p. 193).

  3. They used the British National Child Development Study (NCDS) University College London Institute of Education 2018.

  4. Studies in the non-economic literature (Nakamoto and Schwartz 2010; Schwartz et al. 2005 for example) have linked peer victimization and lower academic achievement. Among the different mediating influences described are, for instance, psychological distress and depression. However, the need for research into other mediators is acknowledged. Since boxes A and C subsume the range of possible mental, emotional, psychological, social or physical mediators, B is linked to D through both A and C.

  5. The NLSY97 data set (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2018) has a rich set of variables that allows us to control for many factors that may trigger bullying and also affect earnings such as the child’s height, weight, whether the child has any deformity or other physical impediments like speech, hearing or vision problems, or any chronic problem like asthma. Despite this, it is still possible that there are some factors that are unobserved and have not been controlled for.

  6. It is helpful to see the different strategies listed by Williams and McGillicuddy-De Lisi (1999) that middle and late adolescents use. These include a positive spin on the situation, problem solving in an objective planned way, accepting responsibility and self-control and social support.

  7. This paper did not look at the effects of being a bully or of being a, what the literature terms, “bully-victim”. These are victims who have become bullies themselves. The NLSY97 does not have direct data on this, though it has data on those who have attacked others (not necessarily in school) or become gang members.

  8. The findings of Olweus (1993) lend support to later depression amongst boys who were bullied between the ages of 12 and 16.

  9. This makes the reasonable assumption that the recession affects those who have been bullied differently from the others for reasons not captured by the controlled variables.

  10. Brown and Taylor (2008) working with the National Child Development Study (NCDS), based their analysis on bullying information obtained from the mother. As they note, this may lead to a gender bias. In this study, the information is given by the person concerned, and there is potential for a different bias. Hesitation to admit being bullied can produce a downward bias.

  11. Studies indicate that if a list of specific actions constituting bullying is given, the responses show a greater prevalence of bullying. According to (Esbensen and Carson 2009), the difference grew from 34% with a single generic question to a high of 76% for verbal bullying and 66% for physical bullying. This problem can be exacerbated when making cross-country comparisons as cautioned by Konishi et al. 2009 as different countries may have different interpretations on the same construct.

  12. This restriction was made as it was thought reasonable to include only those individuals who have been in the labor market for a few years. This entailed a loss of 122 observations overall.

  13. Many worked at multiple jobs.

  14. Of these, 5 were still in school, 242 in a 2 or 4 year college and 77 in a graduate program.

  15. In the NLSY, race and ethnicity are separate. Thus the Hispanic variable comprises individuals who have categorized themselves as such but they could be black or white.

  16. Estimates with duration of unemployment and une06 were not reported as no significant differences emerged between those bullied and not bullied.

  17. Bogart et al. (2014) have found in a longitudinal study that bullying in the fifth grade was associated with poorer mental and physical health as well as other adverse outcomes in the tenth grade.

  18. The North East consists of the states of CT, ME, MA, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, and VT. North Central is made up of IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE, OH, ND, SD, and WI. The South has AL, AR, DE, DC, FL, GA, KY, LA, MD, MS, NC, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA, and WV. Finally, in the West we have AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, NM, OR, UT, WA, and WY.

  19. Many child experts do not usually encourage a change of schools as the existing problem could follow the child. For instance, see Cook’s opinion piece (2018) in Child magazine.

  20. This is somewhat consistent with the findings of Eslea and Rees (2001) who, based on two retrospective studies, concluded that bullying was most intense in middle childhood which they placed between the ages of 11–13.

  21. Thanks are due to the anonymous referee for suggesting this.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks go to Karen Conway of UNH, Dhaval Dave of NBER and Bentley University and Stephen Grubaugh of Bentley University for their insightful comments and valuable suggestions. I also want to thank Arun Venugopal for his research assistance.

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  1. Economics Department, Bentley University, 175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA, 02452, USA

    Swati Mukerjee

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Mukerjee, S. Childhood Bullying and Labor Market Outcomes in The United States. Atl Econ J 46, 313–335 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-018-9587-5

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