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Data

Percentage of children who experience violent discipline at home

About this data

Source
UNICEF (2017) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
September 29, 2017
Date range
2005–2015
Unit
% children 2-14

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Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

UNICEF – Violent discipline

Percentage of children 2–14 years old who experience any violent discipline (psychological aggression and/or physical punishment).

– The source notes that in some instances observations differ from the standard definition or refer to only part of a country.

– The dates associated to each observation correspond to the end of the survey used as underlying source

– Most estimates come from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS). The MICS include a standard set of questions covering different disciplinary methods. It does allow survey respondents to report both violent and nonviolent forms of discipline.

– The source notes that estimates reported in UNICEF publications and in MICS country reports prior to 2010 were calculated using household weights that did not take into account the last-stage selection of children for the administration of the child discipline module in MICS surveys. (A random selection of one child aged 2–14 is undertaken for the administration of the child discipline module.) In January 2010, it was decided that more accurate estimates are produced by using a household weight that takes the last-stage selection into account. MICS3 data were recalculated using this approach. All estimates produced after 2010 use the revised estimates.

– When it was first implemented in MICS3, the child discipline module was administered only to mothers/primary caregivers, who were asked whether any of the disciplinary methods covered in the module had been used by any member of the household during the month preceding the interview. Beginning with MICS4, the methodology was changed: Any adult household member, not just the mother or primary caregiver, can now respond to the questions on child discipline.

Retrieved on
September 29, 2017
Retrieved from
https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/violence/violent-discipline/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
UNICEF; Data and Analytics Section; Division of Data, Research and Policy.

Percentage of children 2–14 years old who experience any violent discipline (psychological aggression and/or physical punishment).

– The source notes that in some instances observations differ from the standard definition or refer to only part of a country.

– The dates associated to each observation correspond to the end of the survey used as underlying source

– Most estimates come from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS). The MICS include a standard set of questions covering different disciplinary methods. It does allow survey respondents to report both violent and nonviolent forms of discipline.

– The source notes that estimates reported in UNICEF publications and in MICS country reports prior to 2010 were calculated using household weights that did not take into account the last-stage selection of children for the administration of the child discipline module in MICS surveys. (A random selection of one child aged 2–14 is undertaken for the administration of the child discipline module.) In January 2010, it was decided that more accurate estimates are produced by using a household weight that takes the last-stage selection into account. MICS3 data were recalculated using this approach. All estimates produced after 2010 use the revised estimates.

– When it was first implemented in MICS3, the child discipline module was administered only to mothers/primary caregivers, who were asked whether any of the disciplinary methods covered in the module had been used by any member of the household during the month preceding the interview. Beginning with MICS4, the methodology was changed: Any adult household member, not just the mother or primary caregiver, can now respond to the questions on child discipline.

Retrieved on
September 29, 2017
Retrieved from
https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/violence/violent-discipline/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
UNICEF; Data and Analytics Section; Division of Data, Research and Policy.

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Percentage of children who experience violent discipline at home”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from UNICEF. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260511-092124/grapher/percentage-of-children-214-who-experience-violent-discipline-at-home.html [online resource] (archived on May 11, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

UNICEF (2017) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

UNICEF (2017) – processed by Our World in Data. “Percentage of children who experience violent discipline at home” [dataset]. UNICEF, “Violent discipline” [original data]. Retrieved May 18, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260511-092124/grapher/percentage-of-children-214-who-experience-violent-discipline-at-home.html (archived on May 11, 2026).

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Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/percentage-of-children-214-who-experience-violent-discipline-at-home.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/percentage-of-children-214-who-experience-violent-discipline-at-home.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/percentage-of-children-214-who-experience-violent-discipline-at-home.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/percentage-of-children-214-who-experience-violent-discipline-at-home.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/percentage-of-children-214-who-experience-violent-discipline-at-home.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/percentage-of-children-214-who-experience-violent-discipline-at-home.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/percentage-of-children-214-who-experience-violent-discipline-at-home.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/percentage-of-children-214-who-experience-violent-discipline-at-home.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear