Re: Do the Poor Spank More

["Marie-Eve Clement" <marieeve.clement@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

you should read :

Gershoff, E. T.(2002).  Corporal punishment by parents and associated child
behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoritical review.
Psychological Bulletin, 128 (4), 539-579.

available at:

http://www.apa.org/journals/bul/press_releases/july_2002/

Marie-Ève Clément
Groupe de recherche et d'action sur la victimisation des enfants
Université du Québec à Montréal
C.P. 8888, Succ. Centre-Ville
http://www.graveardec.uqam.ca
Montréal (Québec), H3C 3P8
Tél. (514) 987-3000 poste 5638
Fax.: (514) 987-8408

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cheryl Soehl" <csoehl@xxxxxxxx>
To: "Child Maltreatment Researchers"
<CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 9:57 AM
Subject: Do the Poor Spank More


> Does anyone know if these statements are supported by solid research?
>
> http://slate.msn.com/?id=2075217
>
> Everyday Economics How the dismal science applies to your life. Beat on
the
> Brat The economics of spanking. By Steven E. Landsburg Posted Monday,
December
> 9, 2002, at 2:25 PM PT
>
> In child discipline, as in pretty much everything else, the rich have more
> options than the poor. If you're rich (or even modestly middle-class), you
can
> take away the Game Boy, confiscate the car keys, or turn off the Instant
> Messenger. But for families with no Game Boys, no cars, and no Internet
> access, that whole range of punishments is unavailable.
>
> If you're rich or middle-class, you can cut your kid's allowance; if
you're
> poor, your kid might need the allowance to live on. When a middle-class
kid
> loses his allowance, he makes do with fewer CDs or video games. When a
poor
> kid loses his allowance, he makes do with fewer school lunches. Depriving
a
> kid of luxuries can be an effective punishment; depriving a kid of
necessities
> can be a form of child abuse.
>
> Spanking, by contrast, is an equal-opportunity punishment; it works
equally
> well whether you're rich or poor. So simple economics suggests that the
very
> poor, with fewer alternatives available, should spank their kids more-and
they
> do. Professor Bruce Weinberg of Ohio State University has studied this. He
> found that if you're a kid in a $6,000-a-year household, you probably get
> spanked every six weeks or so. If your parents' annual income goes up to
> $17,000, you'll get spanked about once every four months. As income rises
> above about $17,000, spanking falls off more slowly; $40,000 and $120,000
> households are not much different from $17,000 households. That makes
sense;
> in today's America, you don't have to be very wealthy before your kid has
a
> Game Boy, so even a $20,000 household has good non-spanking alternatives.
>
> For allowance withdrawal, the numbers go exactly the opposite way,
Weinberg
> found. If you're a kid in a typical $6,000-a-year family, you'll almost
never
> lose your allowance, but in a family that makes $17,000 or more, you'll
lose
> your allowance four or five times a year.
>
> It might seem like a stretch to explain spanking with economics, but what
else
> could account for these patterns? Well, there's always culture. The very
poor
> are disproportionately black, and blacks physically discipline their
children
> more than whites do. But according to Weinberg, the effect of income
persists
> even after you've controlled for race and other cultural variables.
>
> Anyway, black parents punish their children more than white parents in all
> ways. If you're black and you misbehave, you're both more likely to get
> spanked and more likely to lose your allowance than your white neighbor,
who
> in turn is both more likely to get spanked and more likely to lose his
> allowance than the Hispanic kid down the street. So on average, poor
people
> spank more and withdraw allowances less, whereas black people spank more
and
> withdraw allowances more. The income pattern fails to match the racial
> pattern, so the income pattern can't be fully explained by race.
>
> It is true, though, that racial differences are more pronounced for
spanking
> than for allowance denial: In both cases blacks punish the most, then
whites,
> then Hispanics, but the gaps between racial groups are much bigger for
> corporal than for financial punishment.
>
> There are other cultural factors: Boys are punished more than girls, with
> substantially more spankings and a bit more in the way of allowance
> withdrawals. Single mothers spank a little less, and withdraw allowances
quite
> a bit less, than other parents. Older and better-educated parents are a
bit
> less likely to spank and a bit more likely to withdraw allowances. Bigger
> families spank less and withdraw allowances more. But Weinberg's study
finds
> that the poor spank more even after you've accounted for all of these
effects.
> The question is why.
>
> Here's one good alternative to the economic explanation: University of New
> Hampshire sociologist Murray Straus has published multiple studies
concluding
> that children who are spanked are less successful as adults. If the link
is
> causal-that is, if being spanked actually lowers your earnings
potential-and
> if spanking runs in families, then we have an alternative explanation for
> Weinberg's numbers: Low-income parents are more likely to spank their
children
> because low-income parents are more likely to have been spanked
themselves. Or
> maybe it's as simple as this: Poverty breeds frustration, and frustrated
> parents lash out at their kids. Does any reader have a better story?
>