Department of Social Work, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, United States.
Child Abuse Negl. 2017 May;67:315-321. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.03.006. Epub 2017 Mar 21.
A number of research studies have documented an association between child maltreatment and family income. Yet, little is known about the specific types of economic shocks that affect child maltreatment rates. The paucity of information is troubling given that more than six million children are reported for maltreatment annually in the U.S. alone. This study examines whether an exogenous shock to families' disposable income, a change in the price of gasoline, predicts changes in child maltreatment. The findings of a fixed-effects regression show that increases in state-level gas prices are associated with increases in state-level child maltreatment referral rates, even after controlling for demographic and other economic variables. The results are robust to the manner of estimation; random-effects and mixed-effects regressions produce similar estimates. The findings suggest that fluctuations in the price of gas may have important consequences for children.
一些研究表明，儿童虐待与家庭收入之间存在关联。然而，对于影响儿童虐待率的具体经济冲击类型，我们知之甚少。鉴于仅在美国每年就有超过 600 万儿童受到虐待报告，这种信息的匮乏令人担忧。本研究探讨了家庭可支配收入的外生冲击——汽油价格的变化，是否可以预测儿童虐待的变化。固定效应回归的结果表明，即使在控制了人口统计和其他经济变量后，州一级的汽油价格上涨与州一级的儿童虐待转介率的上升有关。结果对于估计方法是稳健的；随机效应和混合效应回归产生了类似的估计。研究结果表明，汽油价格的波动可能对儿童产生重要影响。
