Does unemployment affect child abuse rates? Evidence from New York State

Abstract

This article used child maltreatment reports from New York State from 2000 to 2010 to investigate the relationship between county level unemployment and county level child maltreatment rates. Models showed that a 1 percentage point increase in unemployment rates reduced the child report rate by approximately 4.25%. Report rates for young children (children under the age of 6) and older children (children ages 6 and over) responded similarly to changes in local unemployment, but the relationship between unemployment rates and child maltreatment reports did vary by a county's metropolitan designation. The negative relationship between unemployment and child maltreatment reports was largely contained to metropolitan counties. The relationship between unemployment and child maltreatment reports in non-metropolitan counties was often positive but not statistically significant. These findings were robust to a number of specifications. In alternate models, the county's mandated reporter employment rate was added as a control; the inclusion of this variable did not alter the results.