The Effect of Female Employment on Intimate Partner Violence – An Empirical Study from Rural India
Year: 2020
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Intimate partner violence affects one out of three women globally. In India, the numbers are even higher. This is not just a major health issue; the economic implications are also an important aspect of it. Actions that can be taken to prevent the violence, however, are widely disputed. Even if we are aware of how detrimental intimate partner violence can be, the previous research within this field is contradictory. More knowledge about why it happens and how to prevent it is needed, but it is a challenging issue to identify and study in an adequate manner. Nevertheless, a repeated strategy to prevent intimate partner violence is to increase female labour participation. In this project, I investigate the effect of this strategy. I use employment in India’s governmental workfare program (NREGA) to explore the effect of a shock to female employment and income levels. The analyses show a positive and statistically significant relationship between NREGA employment and intimate partner violence (IPV) in rural India. This is consistent with a male backlash, where female employment is found to worsens the condition for women. When looking at the effect of NREGA employment only for female breadwinners, on the other hand, employment is found to decrease their probability of experiencing intimate partner violence. This is rather consistent with a strategic model of IPV where employment decrease women’s acceptance of violence through income and thereby the outside option.
Author: Kristin Vikan Sjurgard
Language: English
Subfield: Health
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Universitetet i Oslo
OpenAlex ID: W3134322049