Homepage

Welcome to HARSH!

Harsh parenting (HP) involves corporal or emotional punishment and negatively impacts children both physically and psychologically. Its persistence in some regions remains underexplored, particularly regarding wider contextual influences beyond individual and family factors. The HARSH project mark a paradigm shift in understanding HP through an ecological framework, addressing cultural, institutional, and economic causes. It has four primary objectives: uncovering ancestral cultural origins of HP, identifying economic factors’ impact, assessing institutional influences, and understanding how these elements shape HP practices. The project utilizes four transformative approaches: examining Europe and sub-Saharan Africa's socio-economic differences and HP prevalence, leveraging highly disaggregated data for cross-regional analysis, employing innovative methodologies like spatial analysis and quantitative techniques to reveal causal pathways, and pinpointing socio-economic mechanisms impacting vulnerable subgroups. HARSH provides empirical insights into the broader reasons behind HP, facilitating interdisciplinary research across demography, psychology, and medicine. This research is essential for creating effective policies to address this often-overlooked public health issue, offering vital evidence for change.