Income and child maltreatment in unmarried families: Evidence from the earned income tax credit

LM Berger, SA Font, KS Slack, J Waldfogel - Review of Economics of the …, 2017 - Springer
Review of Economics of the Household, 2017Springer
This study estimates the associations of income with both (self-reported) child protective
services involvement and parenting behaviors that proxy for child abuse and neglect risk
among unmarried families. Our primary strategy follows the instrumental variables approach
employed by Dahl and Lochner (2012), which leverages variation between states and over
time in the generosity of the total state and federal earned income tax credit for which a
family is eligible to identify exogenous variation in family income. As a robustness check, we …
Abstract
This study estimates the associations of income with both (self-reported) child protective services involvement and parenting behaviors that proxy for child abuse and neglect risk among unmarried families. Our primary strategy follows the instrumental variables approach employed by Dahl and Lochner (2012), which leverages variation between states and over time in the generosity of the total state and federal earned income tax credit for which a family is eligible to identify exogenous variation in family income. As a robustness check, we also estimate standard OLS regressions (linear probability models), reduced form OLS regressions, and OLS regressions with the inclusion of a control function (each with and without family-specific fixed effects). Our micro-level data are drawn from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal birth-cohort of relatively disadvantaged urban children who have been followed from birth to age nine. Results suggest that an exogenous increase in income is associated with reductions in behaviorally approximated child neglect and CPS involvement, particularly among low-income single-mother families.
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