The influence of neighborhood violent crime on child-rearing: Integrating neighborhood ecologies and stratified reproduction approaches

Abstract

While relationships between neighborhood violent crime and adverse child outcomes are well-established, less is known about how neighborhood violent crime influences child-rearing strategies. To address this gap, we blend neighborhood ecologies and stratified reproduction frameworks and examine interview data collected in 2014-2015 from 107 adult caregivers residing in three low and three elevated violent crime neighborhoods in Cleveland, Ohio. Our objective is to examine how perceptions of neighborhood violent crime and its relationship to self-reported child-rearing practices vary by level of neighborhood violence. We find that, although caregivers in low and elevated violent crime neighborhoods shared the perception of neighborhood violent crime as a concern, their narratives of child-rearing practices differed. Caregivers in elevated violent crime neighborhoods were more likely than their low violent crime counterparts to describe in experience-near terms how violent crime threatened their children's well-being. To protect children, caregivers in elevated violent crime neighborhoods reported engaging in severely constrained child-rearing strategies. These constraints have unintended consequences. While they may protect children in the short-term, they may also reproduce inequities by reducing family quality of life in other ways. These findings advance understanding of how neighborhood violent crime differentially affects child-rearing. We integrate neighborhood ecologies and stratified reproduction frameworks to capture how social inequities interact in neighborhood settings to constrain child-rearing and perpetuate inequities over time.

Keywords: Neighborhood; Parenting; Stratified reproduction; Violent crime.