Given the importance of this issue, I want to briefly compare our respective conclusions and the evidence for them. We both agree that the child abuse fatality rates have been very low in Sweden, with no significant change after the 1979 spanking ban. This is very commendable, but provides no information about the effect of the spanking ban, because the low rates preceded 1979. Their comparison of national surveys in Sweden and the USA used the Conflict Tactics Scale, the most widely used survey measure of physical child abuse.
American parents report more spanking. . .
As Durrant pointed out, the 1975 American response rate was lower than the Gelles-Edfeldt Swedish survey done in 1980. Fortunately, the 1985 American survey used telephone calls and had an even higher response rate than the Swedish survey. Considering a variety of factors, the fairest and most conservative comparison was to compare the Swedish child abuse rate with the average of the two USA rates. These findings were surprising to me, just as the original findings were to Gelles and Edfeldt. At first, I thought it might reflect a temporary upsurge in child abuse as part of a systemic change in Sweden to disciplining children without the use of spanking.