Domestic Violence: An economist perspective

Details

Supervisors

Guirkinger, Catherine

Faculty

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences économiques, orientation générale

Abstract

This paper aims at shedding light on the relationship between domestic violence and female empowerment. Using data from Peru, collected by the DHS program in 2009, 2010, and 2011, and a multivariate approach, we compare the association between female empowerment proxies –as women’s education, labor force participation, contribution to household income and decision-making– and intimate partner violence. Given the rich-quality of the data, we were able to disaggregate three different types of abuse: physical, emotional, and sexual violence. We also took into account variables that could signal identity issues as we reckoned that, besides the commonly-known instrumental use of violence, a large part of the abuse in developing countries is driven by the role that community-level gender expectations play on intra-household interactions. As identity factors, we considered previous female experience to violence and couple’s relative measures of education and income. Our evidence suggests that empowerment could be both a protective and a risk factor as there seems to be a non-linear relationship between it and spousal violence. We found that identity issues could act as risks factors for the prevalence of domestic violence in Peru. After presenting our observational empirical evidence, we extensively reviewed highly accepted theories of domestic violence: Household Bargaining Models and Male-Backlash Models, and discussed our findings using both theoretical approaches. To conclude, we proposed the use of bargaining models that include motivated beliefs as a theoretical tool to better explain the nature of intimate partner violence in developing countries setups, as these take into account identity roles in negotiations.