COVID19 Impact on Child Maltreatment: Evidence from Abuse and Neglect Investigations in Texas

Abstract

COVID-19 has brought challenges to the society in various aspects, as one of the most vulnerable members of society, children’s lives have also been significantly affected by it. This study aims to address the child maltreatment impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Leveraging county level data sets from Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and United States Census Bureau, XGBoost method and fixed effect model was used to investigate the most important economic, demographic, and social factors. It is found that population of 16-year-old or over, the rental vacancy rate, the population of 16-year-old or over that commutes to work by walking, and population of 16-year-old or over that works in agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining industry is positively associated with total number of child maltreatment cases. On the other hand, the total population in labor force, the female population not in labor force, the average of public cash assistance (in dollars), the average time (in minutes) commuting to work, and the population whose household contains 2 units/rooms are negatively associated with total number of child maltreatment cases. Also, a single-difference model was implemented to identify that the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with 7.6% increase in total number of child maltreatment cases.