In recent decades, the United States has grappled with a pronounced “high school dropout” crisis. This paper delves into the specific role of childhood physical abuse within this issue. To accomplish this objective, I utilize data from the Add Health study and employ non-parametric partial identification methods to estimate the Average Treatment Effect (ATE) of childhood physical abuse on high school dropout rates. Our analysis reveals a statistically and economically significant increase in the dropout rate, with an estimated impact of at least 1.4 percentage points, attributable to childhood physical abuse. Furthermore, I explore mechanisms beyond academic performance that may mediate this effect. I find that children who experienced physical abuse during childhood are more likely to exhibit higher rates of class absenteeism, reduced social connectedness within the school environment, and lower self-esteem. These findings shed light on the critical role of childhood physical abuse in contributing to the high school dropout crisis, underscoring the need for targeted interventions and support systems to mitigate its adverse effects on educational outcomes.

Childhood obesity is an increasingly serious public health issue in developed economies, and its consequences carry over into adulthood. In this work, we study the extent to which grandparents’ childcare induces grandchildren’s obesity. Using data from the Millennium Cohort Study in the UK, and non-parametric partial identification methods that require very weak assumptions, we provide informative bounds for the causal effect of interest. We find that grandparents’ childcare makes it more likely by at least 2.1 percentage points (10%) that grandchildren become overweight or obese. This result points to the need for nutritional education policies aiming to reduce children’s obesity to also target grandparents.

We examine gender gaps in early childhood cognitive and non-cognitive skills across several Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries, focusing on the influence of family socioeconomic status and children’s nurturing environment. In contrast to numerous studies concentrated on older children, this study focuses on the preschool period, crucial for lifelong human capital formation. We find that the female advantage often observed in school-aged children's achievement, high school enrollment, and completion in both high-income and LAC countries is also apparent in early childhood in LAC. On average, girls generally outperform boys in various developmental measures and are less likely to display externalizing behaviors. Moreover, these gender gaps generally remain stable across the distributions of developmental outcomes. Unlike findings in older children in high-income countries, we do not observe a heightened responsiveness of boys to family socioeconomic status, even after considering children’s nurturing environment. Our results suggest that during early childhood in LAC, boys and girls do not exhibit differential benefits from socioeconomic status or a more favorable home environment.