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The effect of child maltreatment on illegal and problematic behaviour: new evidence on the ‘cycle of violence’ using twins data

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Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of physical and sexual child maltreatment on several types of illegal and problematic behaviour. By using variation within pairs of twins, we are able to mitigate concerns about confounding factors from previous studies. Using ordinary least squares and twin fixed effects estimation approaches, we find that child maltreatment has a large effect on illegal and problematic behaviours such as drug abuse, conduct disorders, and crime. The estimated effects suggest an increase of illegal and problematic behaviour between 50 and 100%. Our findings are consistent with the so-called cycle of violence hypothesis.

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Notes

  1. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs150/en/

  2. Currie and Tekin (2012) also use a small sample of twins but their main estimates are based on a sample of siblings.

  3. https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/prevalence-child-abuse-and-neglect

  4. These studies were found on the site with statistics by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, quoted above.

  5. For example, http://www.kansascity.com/news/article304620/It-isnt-rare-for-parent-to-single-out-one-child-for-abuse.html, http://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2014/07/22/Phenomenon-exists-in-which-one-child-is-abused-while-others-are-not-experts-say/stories/201407220054, and for a book describing such a case, refer to David Peltzer’s A Child Called “It” (1995), ISBN13: 9781558743663.

  6. Further details about the construction of these measures can be found in Webbink et al. (2012).

  7. Unfortunately, the information on the timing of behaviours and maltreatment is not detailed enough to allow a straightforward regression of maltreatment on early illegal or problematic behaviour.

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful for the valuable comments and suggestions made by the anonymous referees. We highly appreciate their help and guidance. The manuscript has also benefited from comments of attendees of the PhD and brown bag seminar series at the Erasmus School of Economics, of the 10th Augustin Cournot PhD conference, and the 25th EALE conference.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Erasmus School of Economics, Rotterdam, Netherlands

    Violeta Misheva & Dinand Webbink

  2. Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Violeta Misheva & Dinand Webbink

  3. IZA, Bonn, Germany

    Dinand Webbink

  4. Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia

    Nicholas G. Martin

Authors
  1. Violeta Misheva
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  2. Dinand Webbink
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  3. Nicholas G. Martin
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Correspondence to Violeta Misheva.

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Responsible editor: Erdal Tekin

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Misheva, V., Webbink, D. & Martin, N.G. The effect of child maltreatment on illegal and problematic behaviour: new evidence on the ‘cycle of violence’ using twins data. J Popul Econ 30, 1035–1067 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-017-0642-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-017-0642-3

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