Childhood Sexual Abuse and Adult Human Capital

Background and Purpose: Childhood sexual abuse is prevalent at the population level. Eleven percent of adults reported contact sexual abuse before age 18 in a nationally representative survey. This prevalence was 16% among women and 7% among men.

A growing body of literature suggests that the consequences of childhood sexual abuse are long-lasting and extend beyond mental health. Scientists have described neurobiological mechanisms explaining effects of chronic childhood stress on physiological and cognitive development. Extant literature shows that adults who had suffered childhood abuse had poorer physical and mental health, higher rates of adverse health behaviors, and higher rates of violence perpetration compared to adults who suffered no abuse. Yet, the literature has largely neglected to measure the potential consequences of childhood abuse on cognitive development and later-life economic wellbeing while accounting for the fact that survivors of childhood abuse more often come from lower income households.

Here, I measure adult educational and labor market outcomes of survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

 

Methods: Data and samples: I utilized the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), which recruited a random sample of children aged 11-18 in 1994-1995 from both public and private schools. Outcomes were evaluated in Wave IV during 2008-2009 when participants were 24-34 years old. About 15,000 individuals completed both Wave I and Wave IV interviews. I identified the population who reported childhood sexual abuse as those with any report of contact sexual abuse before age 18 in the Wave III or Wave IV self-interview sections.

Measures and analytic strategy: I studied the following outcomes: high school degree, high school diploma, college degree, having full-time employment, and earnings level. I controlled for demographics, other adverse childhood experiences, childhood socioeconomic status, and observed and unobserved characteristics of their school environment through implementation of school fixed effects in regression analyses. Specifically, other adverse childhood experiences included physical abuse, emotional abuse, and parental incarceration. Childhood socioeconomic status was measured as highest parental educational attainment and household income. I addressed missing data with multiple imputation.

 

Results: Childhood sexual abuse was associated with significantly lower educational attainment and poorer labor market outcomes: about 30% lower likelihood of obtaining a high school degree, 40% lower likelihood of having a high school diploma, 36% lower likelihood of obtaining a college degree, 17% lower likelihood of full-time employment, and 20% reduced earnings.

 

Conclusions and Implications: This study highlights the importance of detection of childhood sexual abuse to identify those predicted to have poorer success in the education system and on the labor market. Results might motivate action within the education system to improve identification of and programs for students suffering emotional disturbance, which is already an eligible reason for special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. This study might motivate decisions for resource allocation to prevention of childhood abuse and support for survivors to avoid durable consequences on economic wellbeing. Results could potentially be used within the justice system in compensation calculations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse.