European Seminars on the Economics of Crime (ESEC)

When a child is the victim of a non-domestic violent assault, how do their parents respond? Using linked population-wide administrative data from New Zealand and a stacked difference-in-differences design, we show that youth assault is a two-generation shock. Over the two years following an assault, parental earnings fall by 2.2 percent and stress-related medication dispensing rises by 11 percent. These responses are larger after more serious assaults, for younger victims, and for mothers, consistent with a caregiving channel. Both assault risk and parental earnings losses are steeply graded by neighborhood deprivation, making the household burden of youth violence strongly regressive.