Working Paper: NBER ID: w24802
Authors: Janet Currie; Michael Muellersmith; Maya Rossin-Slater
Abstract: We study the effects of prenatal exposure to violent crime on infant health, using New York City crime records linked to mothers’ addresses in birth records data. We address endogeneity of assault exposure with three strategies and find that in utero assault exposure significantly increases the incidence of adverse birth outcomes. We calculate that the annual social cost of assault during pregnancy in the US is more than $3.8 billion. Since infant health predicts long-term wellbeing and disadvantaged women are disproportionately likely to be domestic abuse victims, violence in utero may be an important channel for intergenerational transmission of inequality.
Keywords: prenatal exposure; violent crime; infant health; birth outcomes; intimate partner violence
JEL Codes: I14; I31; J12; J13; K14
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| assault during pregnancy (J12) | adverse birth outcomes (J13) |
| assault during pregnancy (J12) | very low birth weight (J13) |
| assault during pregnancy (J12) | low 1-minute Apgar scores (J13) |
| assault during pregnancy (J12) | induced labor (J89) |
| induced labor (J89) | adverse birth outcomes (J13) |
| assault during pregnancy (J12) | medical services usage (I11) |
| medical services usage (I11) | adverse birth outcomes (J13) |