Corporal Punishment and Socioemotional Adjustment: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Preschool Boys and Girls in Latin America.

Abstract

Corporal and psychological punishment toward children typically emerges from bidirectional, escalating, and coercive parent-child interactions. These parenting dynamics have been understudied in Latin America, where associations with child emotional development have been found to be significant. This study addressed three questions in a sample of 18,269 typically developing boys and girls, aged 3 to 4 years, from 10 Latin American countries (UNICEF MICS data 2019-2024), regarding corporal punishment (hitting with hand/belt/object or with maximum force, shaking) and psychological punishment (yelling and insulting): (a) Which children, based on their socioemotional adjustment, are at greater risk of receiving corporal punishment? (b) How robust are these associations to unmeasured confounding factors? (c) What contextual factors moderate this relationship? Boys and girls with externalizing behaviors (e.g., hitting others) were more likely to receive punishment. However, associations were significant in only 7 of 10 countries and showed moderate robustness to confounding (E-values: 1.08-1.37). In pooled analyses across all countries, boys showed more consistent negative associations with prosocial behavior. However, substantial cross‑country heterogeneity emerged, and girls exhibited significant associations in several national contexts, sometimes with effect sizes exceeding those for boys. Key protective factors attenuated negative associations: early childhood education attendance, higher maternal education, and greater household wealth. Additionally, three vulnerabilities emerged in the region: 29% poverty, 83% low maternal education, and 43% no early childhood education attendance. The coercion cycle was evidenced among preschool-aged children across Latin America, although with substantial national variation. Effective interventions must extend beyond legal prohibitions. Context‑sensitive public policies that strengthen protective early education and economic resources and implement culturally adapted parenting programs to interrupt coercive cycles, particularly in high‑risk environments for preschool children, are warranted.