Keeping Teens in School Longer Reduced Child Harm, Study Finds

A major South Australian education reform led to sharp falls in child maltreatment reports and emergency hospital visits, according to new research.

School students in Brisbane, Australia, May 11, 2020. AAP Image/Dan Peled

Raising the compulsory school leaving age in South Australia has reduced child harm across a wide range of measures, a study by Monash University and the University of South Australia has found.

The state government raised the school leaving age from 16 to 17 in 2009, which had a positive impact on health, schooling, and child protection outcomes, the study stated.

Published in The Review of Economics and Statistics, the research found the policy led to a 38 percent drop in first-time child maltreatment reports to Child Protective Services (CPS)—equating to 92 fewer children each year following the reform.

Emergency department visits also fell by 19 percent, or 157 children annually, particularly among those with past involvement with CPS. The study said this reduction was mainly due to fewer injuries.

Using administrative records to compare children subject to the higher school leaving age with those who were not, the researchers found that public school enrolment increased by roughly 6 percent, or an additional 412 students each year.

“On balance, we conclude that past extensions to the school-leaving age played an important role in the lives of children exposed to child maltreatment or at risk by improving these children’s safety,” the researchers said.

“The benefits from additional schooling appear to be driven primarily by staying within the education environment itself.”

Abuse Linked to Dropping Out

Lead author Adam Dzulkipli, a research fellow at the Monash University Centre for Health Economics, said abused and neglected children were at high risk of dropping out of school and having poor health.

To his knowledge, this was the first study to examine how extending schooling impacts the likelihood of maltreatment or maltreatment-related harm in Australia.

“From a policy perspective, our results suggest that policy interventions aimed at increasing student retention and encouraging children to remain engaged with school can have a powerful impact on their safety,” Dzulkipli said.

“While these policies are typically introduced to enhance educational outcomes, our study suggests other potential benefits.

“We also found that the reduction in first-time child maltreatment translated to an annual saving of $46 million in lifetime costs [such as] government services use, productivity losses, and premature mortality.”

Co-author and Centre for Health Economics Associate Professor Nicole Black said child maltreatment rates were unacceptably high globally, with affected children facing elevated risks of severe adverse outcomes throughout their lives.

She said governments had both an economic incentive and a moral obligation to help these children, and more work was needed to uncover effective long-term interventions.

“Our findings suggest that the adverse outcomes suffered by maltreated children can potentially be reduced by appropriately designed policy intervention,” she explained.

“Given the large individual and social costs of child maltreatment, more investment in such policies is important and would be worthwhile.”