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Annalisa Frigo, Elisabetta Lodigiani, For children’s sake: the effects of child abuse scandals on migration aspirations, Journal of Economic Geography, 2025;, lbaf013, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbaf013
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Abstract
This article investigates the relationship between child sex abuse scandals and migration aspirations. We consider individual survey data from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico over the period 2010–15, and we exploit the region of residence and the date of the interview of respondents to estimate the effect of region-specific time-varying pedophilia scandals in the Catholic Church on migration aspirations. Estimates show that exposure to scandals is an important determinant for migration aspirations, especially for young adults. Investigating the channels, we find that scandals increase concerns about child well-being and decrease the confidence in national institutions.