Gender Differences in the Intergenerational Connections between Child Maltreatment and Intimate Partner Violence

Gender Differences in the Intergenerational Connections Between Child Maltreatment, Youth Violence, and Intimate Partner Violence The 2006 AcademyHealth Annual Meeting Seattle, June 25-27 Xiangming Fang, PhD Phaedra S. Corso, PhD Division of Violence Prevention National Center for Injury Prevention and Control Disclaimer: The findings and conclusions in this study are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Introduction • The incidence and economic burden of violence is a national problem o Nearly 8.5 million incidents of intimate partner violence (IPV) occur annually o The costs of IPV against women alone > $8.3 billion • Understanding the cycle of violence is critical for designing successful prevention interventions Introduction (II) • Previous research has suggested the victims of child maltreatment (CM) are at increased risk of o Violent offending as youths o IPV perpetration as adults • Limitations of previous research o Inadequate controlling for confounding factors o Limited generalizability o Lack of adequate investigation of  gender differences  whether YV perpetration mediates the effect of CM on IPV perpetration Objectives • Use a longitudinal and nationally representative sample to examine o the intergenerational connections between three forms of CM (neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse), YV perpetration, and IPV perpetration o the role that gender plays in above developmental relationships Conceptual Model - Perpetration Youth violence perpetration Young adult IPV perpetration Child maltreatment: Neglect Phys abuse Sex abuse Conceptual Model – Perpetration (II) Family background factors Young adult individual factors Adolescent individual factors Youth violence perpetration Adolescent community factors Young adult IPV perpetration Child maltreatment: Neglect Phys abuse Sex abuse Data Description • Study based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) • Three waves of survey • Weighted to be nationally representative • Study sample o Young adults aged 18 to 26 who reported being involved in o o at least one sexual relationship in the two years preceding Wave III survey YV behavior data from Wave I IPV and CM data from Wave III IPV Perpetration Measure • Threatened partner with violence, pushed, shoved, or threw something at partner • Slapped, hit or kicked partner YV Perpetration Measure • Took part in a group fight • Hurt someone badly enough to need bandages or • • • care from a doctor or nurse Used or threatened to use a weapon to get something from someone Pulled a knife or gun on someone Shot or stabbed someone Child Maltreatment Measures (Leeb et al., 2004) • Neglect o had left the child home more than 5 times when an adult o • Physical abuse o had slapped, hit, or kicked the child more than 5 times • Sexual abuse o had touched the child in a sexual way, forced the child to touch him or her in a sexual way, or forced the child to have sexual relations at least once should have been with the child had not taken care of the child’s basic needs at least once Control Variables • Basic demographic variables o age, age squared, gender, and race • Family background factors o parent education, family poverty, and being from twoparent family • • Adolescent individual and community factors o religiosity , community economic disadvantage and community crime rate Young adult individual factors o marital status, school enrollment, employment status, religiosity and own education Test the significance of gender effect • Include the interaction terms between the gender dummy and each predictor variable in the pooled regressions • Chi-squared = 31.68 • df = 19 • p<0.05 Results from Bivariate Probit Models Variable IPV Equation YV Neglect Phyabuse Coefficient (Robust SE) Male 0.25 (0.09) *** 0.09 (0.10) 0.06 (0.16) Female 0.22 (0.06) *** 0.18 (0.09) ** 0.22 (0.11) ** (0.153) (0.08) ** (0.11) * Sexabuse Neglect 0.62 (0.20) *** 0.25 (0.08) *** 0.31 (0.12) ** 0.11 (0.18) 0.20 0.20 0.20 YV Equation Phyabuse Sexabuse - 0.04 (0.16) * p<0.10 ** p<0.05 *** p<0.01 The Developmental Relationship between Neglect and IPV perpetration 0.0057 ** (0.0029) Youth violence perpetration Male Neglect 0.0209 (0.0237) Young adult IPV perpetration 0.0057** (0.0027) Female Youth violence perpetration Young adult IPV perpetration Neglect 0.0646 ** (0.0320) The Developmental Relationship between Physical Abuse and IPV perpetration 0.0071 * (0.0039) Youth violence perpetration Male Physical abuse 0.0134 (0.0362) 0.0057 (0.0035) Young adult IPV perpetration Female Physical abuse Youth violence perpetration 0.0796 ** (0.0414) Young adult IPV perpetration The Developmental Relationship between Sexual Abuse and IPV perpetration 0.0029 (0.0072) Youth violence perpetration Male Sexual abuse 0.1763 *** (0.0707) - 0.0006 (0.0035) Young adult IPV perpetration Female Sexual abuse Youth violence perpetration 0.0720 (0.0572) Young adult IPV perpetration Gender Differences (Other Variables) Variable IPV Equation Own edu Parent edu Religiosity Religiosity Youth . Violence Commu. crime Equation Coefficient (Robust SE) Male -0.035 (0.023) -0.081 (0.036) ** 0.022 (0.050) -0.025 (0.040) 0.027 (0.012) ** -0.089 (0.111) Female -0.053 (0.017)*** -0.022 (0.028) -0.107 (0.039)*** -0.150 (0.038)*** 0.007 (0.014) 0.227 (0.092)** Family poverty * p<0.10 ** p<0.05 *** p<0.01 Summary of Findings • In general, victims of child maltreatment are more likely to be the perpetrators of IPV and YV • Gender differences exist for o The developmental relationship between child o maltreatment, YV perpetration, and IPV perpetration Individual, family, and community risk and protective factors for YV and IPV perpetration Policy Implications • IPV and YV prevention should begin as early as childhood • It may be important to account for gender differences when designing the optimal time and setting for violence prevention programs critical for stopping the developmental trajectory of violence • An integrative approach to preventing violence is Limitations • Retrospective reports • Self-report data • Selection bias Acknowledgement • • • • • • • Daniel Whitaker, PhD Rebecca Leeb, PhD, MA Jennifer Wyatt, PhD Monica Swahn, PhD, MPH William Rhoads, MPA Brenda Le, MS John Lutzker, PhD Acknowledgement This research uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by a grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 (addhealth@unc.edu). Descriptive Statistics of the Sample Variable Mean (SD) Male Female 21.72 (1.80) 0.70 (0.46) 0.15 (0.35) 0.11 (0.31) 0.03 (0.18) 0.73 (0.44) 3.59 (1.23) 0.22 (0.42) 5630 (2661) Variable Mean (SD) Male Female 0.30 (0.46) 0.23 (0.42) 0.16 (0.37) 0.08 (0.28) 0.05 (0.21) 0.01 (0.83) 0.02 (0.76) 0.68 (0.47) 13.23 (2.04) Age 3 White Black Hispanic Asian Twopar Par_edu Fam_pov N_crime 21.93 (1.87) 0.69 (0.47) 0.14 (0.35) 0.12 (0.33) 0.03 (0.18) 0.74 (0.44) 3.64 (1.25) 0.22 (0.41) 5633 (2608) IPV YV Neglect Phyabuse Sexabuse Relig1 Relig3 Emp_ya Edu_ya 0.16 (0.37) 0.38 (0.49) 0.22 (0.42) 0.08 (0.28) 0.05 (0.21) -0.12 (0.83) -0.18 (0.75) 0.74 (0.44) 12. 94 (1.97)