Spanking and other physical discipline lead to exclusively negative outcomes for children in low- and middle-income countries

Physically punishing children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has exclusively negative outcomes—including poor health, lower academic performance, and impaired social-emotional development—yielding similar results to studies in wealthier nations, finds a new analysis published in Nature Human Behaviour. In 2006, the United Nations Secretary General called for a ban on corporal punishment—acts of physical force to inflict pain that includes smacking, shaking, and spanking—for children. To date, 65 countries worldwide have instituted full or partial bans of the practice. Most of the bans were established in high-income countries (having a gross national income of at least $14,000 per capita) bolstered by the UN’s call, and research finding detrimental outcomes in wealthier nations.

“Some scholars have suggested that physical punishment might have different effects in countries where it is more prevalent or socially normative, a perspective known as the cultural normativeness hypothesis,” says lead author Jorge Cuartas, assistant professor of applied psychology at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. “However, the lack of data from low- and middle-income countries has made it challenging to fully understand the balance between universal and context-specific harms of physical punishment during childhood.”

The researchers analyzed 195 studies related to corporal punishment published between 2002 and 2024. The studies covered 92 LMICs and 19 outcomes related to parent-child relationships, mental and physical health, violent behavior, attitudes toward violence, substance use, cognitive function, social-emotional skills, sleep, motor skills, and likelihood of being a child laborer.

They found physical punishment was significantly associated with negative consequences in 16 of the 19 outcomes: worse parent-child relationships, being a victim of violence, perpetrating violence (including intimate partner violence in adulthood), approving violence, physical health problems, mental health problems, substance use, poor academic outcomes, impaired language skills, impaired executive function, impaired social-emotional skills, overall behavioral problems, internalizing behavior problems (e.g., depression and withdrawal), externalizing behaviors (e.g., aggression and destruction), impaired early child development, and quality of sleep.

They found no impact on cognitive skills, motor skills, and child labor. Notably, the study found no positive outcomes associated with corporal punishment.  

“The consistency and strength of these findings suggest that physical punishment is universally harmful to children and adolescents. Moving forward, more research is needed to identify effective strategies for preventing physical punishment on a global scale and ensuring that children are protected from all forms of violence to support their healthy development,” says Cuartas.

This research was coauthored by Elizabeth T. Gershoff of the University of Texas at Austin, Drew H. Bailey of the University of California, Irvine, Maria Alejandra Gutiérrez of Yale University, and Dana C. McCoy of Harvard University.

This research was supported by a National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, the American Psychological Foundation, the Society for Research in Child Development, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD042849).