Unveiling Shadows: The Impact of Unemployment on Child Maltreatment

Dan Brown (dan.brown@cantab.net) and Elisabetta De Cao
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Dan Brown: GiveWell

No 16799, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Child maltreatment is pervasive, often undetected, yet harmful. We investigate whether it is impacted by unemployment by leveraging unique administrative data including all reported cases of child abuse and neglect in the United States from 2004 to 2012. Using an industry shift-share instrument to identify county-level unemployment effects, we find a substantial rise in neglect. The likely channel is lower quality-time spent with children rather than decreased financial investments. Expenditures on children remain stable during recessions. Instead, higher local-area unemployment rate reduces parental childcare time, worsens mental health, and contributes to an increase in one-parent households.

Keywords: child abuse and neglect; unemployment rate; recession; Bartik; mental health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 I10 J12 J13 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 66 pages
Date: 2024-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-lab, nep-law and nep-ure
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