Sexual assault of girls: Socioeconomic risk factors

Significance: The sexual assault (SA) of girls is a problem world-wide. Purpose: This U.S.-based study examines whether prospectively-measured socioeconomic (SES) background, measured on a continuum, affects girls' vulnerability for sexual assault, and if so, the pathways through which it occurs. Method: The data come from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and are derived from interviews with 1,087 girls, their primary caregivers, and household heads. The data were collected beginning during the girls' first year of life and continuing through their early twenties. With logistic regression, factors measured during early childhood were used to predict whether girls experienced a subsequent first sexual assault before the age of 18. Results: The absence of one or both parents, maternal education less than college, and family income below 400% of the federal poverty threshold ($92,000 for a family of four) were associated with a greater risk of subsequent SA before the girl reached age 18. The inverse effect of SES on risk of SA was mediated in part by the presence of learning difficulties during elementary school. Discussion: Whereas one might expect that girls born into poverty are at greater risk of subsequent SA than are other girls, these findings indicate that the risk of SA is relatively stable along the SES continuum until families reach the upper-middle class. One reason for this may be that high SES families are better positioned to address learning disabilities while their daughters are very young, thereby reducing their subsequent vulnerability to sexual predators.