What Happens When A Country Bans Spanking?

In 1979, Sweden became the first country to ban the corporal punishment of children. Earlier this year, Nepal became the 54th country to do so.

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Now a new study looking at 400,000 youths from 88 countries around the world suggests such bans are making a difference in reducing youth violence. It marks the first systematic assessment of whether an association exists between a ban on corporal punishment and the frequency in which adolescents get into fights. And, says Frank Elgar, the study’s lead author and an associate professor at the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University in Montreal, “The association appears to be fairly robust.” The study appeared in the online journal BMJ Open.