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Poverty, Violence, and Health: The Impact of Domestic Violence During Pregnancy on Newborn Health

Year: 2011

Type: article

Abstract: Two percent of women in the US suffer from intimate partner violence annually, with poor and minority women disproportionately affected. I provide evidence of an important negative externality associated with domestic violence by estimating a negative and causal relationship between violence during pregnancy and newborn health, exploiting variation in the enforcement of laws against domestic violence for identification. I find that hospitalization for an assault while pregnant reduces birth weight by 163 grams. This sheds new light on the infant health production process as well as observed income gradients in health given that poor mothers are disproportionately affected by violence.

Source: The Journal of Human Resources

DOI: 10.1353/jhr.2011.0024

Author: Anna Aizer

Institution: Brown University

Language: English

Topic: Intimate Partner and Family Violence

Subfield: Health

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Good health and well-being, Peace, justice, and strong institutions, Reduced inequalities, Gender equality

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development