1. Societal Factors of Child Maltreatment: Focusing on the Role of Neighborhood Poverty Bong Joo Lee Seoul National University

2. Background The Child Protection System in Korea Revision of Child Welfare Law in 2000 specified abuse and neglect as a condition requiring child protection through government intervention for the first time in Korea Before the legislation, there was no law mandating the reporting of suspected child abuse and neglect The Law Provided definitions of child abuse and neglect Instituted mandated reporting system (24-hour hotline) Instituted regional child abuse/neglect prevention centers

3. Previous Research on Child Maltreatment in Korea Very limited empirical research on the risk factors of child maltreatment Most research has focused on psychiatric or psychological factors employing the “medical” model Very little attention has been given to the social context as risk factors for child maltreatment With lack of attention to the larger social context in which maltreatment occurs, the perspective can be used as “blaming the victim”

4. Purpose of the Study To empirically examine the effects of societal factors on child maltreatment in Korea To investigate the relationship between reported child maltreatment rates and poverty, family structure, level of education, and housing characteristics at the neighborhood level

5. Public Assistance Receipt in a Korean City

6. Divorce Rates

7. Child Maltreatment Rates

8. Public Assistance and Child Maltreatment Rates in Seoul, Korea

9. Method Dependent variable: child maltreatment rates Used administrative data on substantiated reports of child maltreatment for 3 years (2002-2004) Through geocoding the addresses in the reports, neighborhoods of the reports were identified (1,233 Dongs in the seven largest Metro areas in Korea)

10. Method Independent Variables Public assistance receipt rate Per capita property tax Divorce rates % single father households % single mother households % high school graduates Number of rooms per person in the household

11. A Caution: “Visibility Hypothesis” The study uses administrative data on substantiated “reports” The relationship between “reports” and poverty might be due to the fact that poor families are more likely to be “found” by CPS One pathway for being “found” could be poor families have more frequent contacts with social services If the visibility hypothesis is true, we can expect that areas with higher public assistance receipt rates will have higher rates of report by social service workers

12. Analysis Used Tobit model: the dependent variable has uneven distribution (many Dong’s have 0 report) Used STATA statistical software to estimate models

13. Rates of Child Maltreatments

14. Percent of Reports by Social Service Workers

15. Independent Variables

16. Multivariate Analysis Results: Child Maltreatment Rates

17. Testing the “Visibility Hypothesis”: Do poor neighborhoods have more reports by social service workers?

18. Conclusion The first study in Korea to examine the relationship between community’s socioeconomic characteristics and child maltreatment using neighborhood level indicators The results show that neighborhoods with higher rates of public assistance receipt, divorce rates, and lower levels of property tax have higher rates of child maltreatment (verified that the results are not likely due to the “visibility effect”) Intervention efforts of child abuse and neglect should go beyond focusing on individual perpetrators and/or child victims to altering neighborhood characteristics Efforts to prevent child maltreatment should focus on neighborhood disorganization factors, such as neighborhood poverty and family dissolution