The lasting consequences of childhood sexual abuse on human capital and economic well‐being

Abstract

We know much less about the durable impacts of childhood sexual abuse beyond mental health, which may extend into adulthood. A main barrier to research has been difficulty disentangling childhood environmental factors and other experiences. Yet, measuring long-term impacts of childhood sexual abuse is crucial to understand survivor welfare across domains of well-being, to identify areas for needed support, and to inform policy and resource allocation for prevention, detection, and support.In this paper, I investigate whether there are durable effects of childhood sexual abuse on adult human capital and economic well-being and estimate likely bounds around the causal effects. I use a U.S.

Repercussions of a Raid: Health and Education Outcomes of Children Entangled in Immigration Enforcement

“…It perhaps goes without saying that the serious, negative spillover consequences of workplace immigration raids on children, families, and communities are probably not justified given the handfuls of unauthorized immigrants that these raids net and process. We only examined the effects of the workplace raid for children in the year following the raid, whereas research discussed in this paper suggests the consequences may very well be long‐term and deleterious (Amuedo‐Dorantes & Lopez, 2015; Henkhaus, 2022), compounded by the continued stress, uncertainty, and family and economic instability these children likely continue to face. The well‐documented negative consequences associated with fear and chilling effects, which a Chief U.S. District Judge pointed out are frequently the result of outright discriminatory targeting of immigration enforcement activities based on skin color (Satterfield, 2021), also appear to more broadly affect children and families of Hispanic origin regardless of immigration status.…”

“…Following the landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (Dube et al., 2001; Felliti et al, 1998), diagnosis and procedure codes were extracted from children's and mothers’ TennCare claims within inpatient, outpatient, and physician files and prescription drug names from the mother's pharmacy claims or TennCare enrollment files to develop measures of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; and family disruption that we use in our analysis (Henkhaus et al., 2020). Recent research (Henkhaus, 2022) shows that experiencing any ACE is associated with longer‐term negative consequences into adulthood, including a lower likelihood of high school graduation, college degree completion, and full‐time employment, as well as lower annual earnings, making these important outcomes to investigate. However, as with children's health outcomes, it is possible that reporting or detection of ACEs may have been hindered by chilling effects of the raid.…”

“…This makes it even more concerning to see the apparent increase in sexual abuse among COI in the “bullseye” area of the raid (Hamblen County). Henkhaus (2022) found that sexual abuse in childhood was associated with 7.1 percentage points lower likelihood of high school diploma receipt, 7.2 percentage points lower likelihood of bachelor's degree receipt, 5.9 percentage points lower likelihood of full‐time work, and $4,815 lower earnings in adulthood. A potential contributing factor to the observed increase in sexual abuse among COI may have been children staying in the care of others or receiving less adult supervision during the period following the raid, as noted by school counselors and other raid first responders.…”

Adolescences experience of gender-based violence: a qualitative study

“…The violence experienced by female adolescents increases the risk of developing psychiatric problems such as perceived stress, depressed mood, and suicidality [10], [11]. It also affects personal and social development problems into adulthood [12], and in Int J Public Health Sci ISSN: 2252-8806  the longterm affect socioeconomic status through academic performance, educational attainment, labor force participation, occupational status, and earnings in early adulthood [13], [14]. Understanding how violence against female adolescents can occur and the consequences that may occur to the female adolescents who are victims is vital to prevent problems that arise in the future.…”

The Social Cost of Violence Against Children and Youth

“…Se ha demostrado que la violencia en la infancia y, concretamente, la violencia sexual, tiene consecuencias adversas para la salud, física y mental (Maniglio, 2009); consecuencias sociales, con un mayor riesgo de nuevas victimizaciones (Walker et al, 2019), pero también de conducta antisocial y delictiva, criminalidad adulta y comportamiento violento (Papalia et al, 2018); así como consecuencias socioeconómicas, con un peor rendimiento académico (Fry et al, 2018) y laboral, y niveles más bajos de bienestar financiero (Currie y Widom, 2010), que suponen importantes pérdidas de capital humano (Henkhaus, 2022).…”