Seminarios

Mar

“Maternal Violence during Early Childhood and Child Development”

Presenta: Matías Berthelon (Universidad Adolfo Ibañez) Lugar y hora: Miércoles 28 de Marzo de 2018, 13:00 hrs. Sala P 301, Edificio Placa (Diagonal Paraguay 257)

Abstract

We study the effects of violence towards children on early childhood cognitive and non-cognitive development. We use data from a longitudinal nationally representative survey of Chilean children to generate estimates of the effect of different types of violence on child development. We have measures of children’s exposure to verbal and/or physical violence for two rounds of the survey conducted in 2010 and 2012. We study its effects on two different tests: one that measures vocabulary (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, PPVT) and one that measures socio-emotional development (Child Behavioral Check List, CBCL). We contribute to the literature by providing estimates, which can be interpreted as causal under plausible conditions that are less restrictive than cross-sectional estimates. We find that after controlling for child-mother unobservable characteristics, being exposed to either verbal or physical violence has a negative and significant effect on verbal skills of children, and that exposure to any form of violence negatively affects socio-emotional development, increasing internalization and externalization problems, as well as sleep problems. We also find that systematic exposure to violence over time decreases child development in both areas. Finally, we study heterogeneous effects along three lines: child’s sex, age, and maternal education level. We find that both boys and girls are negatively affected by violence, particularly in terms of their non-cognitive development, and that its negative effects are stronger among boys. We also find that the negative effects diminish as children get older, but they remain negative over the complete age range in the sample. In terms of mother’s education, we find stronger effects on children with lower educated mothers. Overall our estimations consistently and clearly reveal that exposure to violence has causal and significant negative effects on the cognitive and non-cognitive development of children.

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Datos del Seminario

Fecha de inicio:
28 de Marzo, 2018 | 13:00 hrs.

Fecha de término
28 de Marzo, 2018 | 14:00 hrs.