Evaluations of the effects of Sweden's spanking ban on physical child abuse rates: a literature review

Sweden's 1979 law banning corporal punishment by parents was welcomed by many as a needed policy to help reduce physical abuse of children. This study reviews the published empirical evidence relevant to that goal. Only seven journal articles with pertinent data were located. One study reported that the rate of physical child abuse was 49% higher in Sweden than in the USA, comparing its 1980 Swedish national survey with the average rates from two national surveys in the United States in 1975 and 1985. In contrast, a 1981 retrospective survey of university students suggested that the Swedish abuse rate had been 79% less than the American rate prior to the Swedish spanking ban. Some unpublished evidence suggests that Swedish rates of physical child abuse have remained high, although child abuse mortality rates have stayed low there. A recent Swedish report suggested that the spanking ban has made little change in problematic forms of physical punishment. The conclusion calls for more timely and rigorous evaluations of similar social experiments in the future.