Domestic Abuse and Child Health

Samantha Rawlings and Zahra Siddique

No 8566, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We examine the effects of different kinds of domestic abuse (physical violence, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and physical violence while the victim is pregnant) on health outcomes of children born to victims. We use data on approximately 0.6 million children born between 1975 and 2013 across thirty different developing countries to investigate this relationship. Comparing children of abused mothers with otherwise similar children whose mothers were not victims of abuse, we find these children are 0.4 percentage points more likely to die within thirty days, 0.9 percentage points more likely to die within a year and 1.5 percentage points more likely to die within the first five years of being born. They are also 1.8 percentage points more likely to be low birth weight and, conditional on survival, 1.1 percentage points more likely to be stunted. Our findings allow us to quantify the costs of domestic abuse beyond costs borne directly by victims (or mothers) and gain a better understanding of the child health production process in a developing country context.

Keywords: child health; domestic violence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I15 J12 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2014-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published - revised version appears as IZA DP 11899; published as `Domestic Violence and Child Mortality in the Developing World' in: Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2020, 82(4): 723-750.

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Working Paper: Domestic Abuse and Child Health (2014)
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