Child Abuse & Neglect 29 (2005) 101–102

Invited Commentary

Income and child maltreatment

Jane Waldfogel

School of Social Work, MC 4600, 803 McVickar Hall, 622 W. 113th Street, New York, NY 10025, USA

Received 10 May 2004; received in revised form 22 July 2004; accepted 7 August 2004

The article in this issue byLawrence Berger (2005)makes an important theoretical and empiricalcontribution to the literature on child maltreatment.

In contrast to prior research, Berger applies economic theory and methods to the topic of child mal-treatment. In recent years, economists have turned their attention to adult domestic violence (see, forinstance,Pollak, 2002; Tauchen & Witte, 1995), but studies of child maltreatment using economic theoryand methods are rare. Berger uses economic theory to develop a set of hypotheses, which he then testsusing data from the National Family Violence Survey. Thus, although these data have been available forsome time (the survey was conducted in 1985), the analyses reported in this article are innovative andyield fresh insights.

The article focuses in particular on the effects of income on child maltreatment. The literature on childabuse and neglect has long noted an association between child abuse and neglect and low-income andpoverty status. However, prior research has not been able to establish whether these relationships arecausal. A particularly important limitation in this regard is that prior research has been confined to studiesof state- or county-level data, or microdata on children known to the child protective services system or thechild welfare system. Studies using state- or county-level data are problematic because relationships areestimated for populations, rather than individuals (this is the well-known “ecological fallacy” problem).Studies of children known to the system are potentially biased if there is bias in reporting or case opening(such that low-income or poor children are more likely to be known to the system).

Thus, this article breaks new ground in two important respects: by estimating models, based on eco-nomic theory, of the relationship between income, family characteristics, and measures of child maltreat-ment, and by conducting analyses of household level data on children from the general population, ratherthan children known to child protection or child welfare.

In these analyses, Berger finds strong associations between family characteristics and child maltreat-ment. After controlling for family income and a host of other family characteristics, he finds that, across

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102 J. Waldfogel / Child Abuse & Neglect 29 (2005) 101–102

all family types, younger children and children whose mothers have higher depression scores and higherlevels of alcohol use are more likely to face physical violence. In two parent families, male children aremore likely to be maltreated, as are those living with greater numbers of children and husband-to-wifephysical violence in their households. Children whose parents have a history of experiencing physicalviolence from their own parents are also at higher risk of maltreatment. Finally, the presence of additionaladults in the household (i.e., other than the mother and her spouse/partner) appears to protect childrenfrom physical violence.

What of the role of income? Here, the results of the separate analyses that Berger conducts for married-couple versus single-parent families are particularly novel and interesting. In these analyses, Berger findsthat low income raises the risk of maltreatment in single-parent families, but not in two-parent families.This is an important finding, and suggests that the care of children may be more sensitive to economicconditions in families where only one parent is present (perhaps because these families have lower incomesto start with, or because factors other than income play a relatively larger role in two-parent families).Similarly, Berger finds that a high local unemployment rate raises the risk of abuse in single-parentfamilies, but not in married-couple families. Again, this result suggests that the care that children receivemay be more sensitive to economic conditions in single-parent, versus two-parent, families.

This article, while making an important contribution in its own right, is also noteworthy in termsof pointing the way towards useful future research. In particular, the article demonstrates the utility ofapplying a different theoretical and methodological perspective to the topic of maltreatment, and the utilityof analyzing a household sample, rather than a sample of children involved with the child protection orchild welfare system. Future research drawing on different perspectives and different datasets is likely toprove very useful as well and should shed more light on the question of how and why income matters forthe treatment of children.

References

Berger, L. M. (2005). Income, family characteristics, and physical violence toward children.Child Abuse& Neglect, 29(2),000–000.

Pollak, R. (2002).An intergenerational model of domestic violence(NBER Working Paper No. 9099). Cambridge, MA: NationalBureau of Economic Research.

Tauchen, H. V., & Witte, A. D. (1995). The dynamics of domestic violence.American Economic Review, 85(2), 414–418.