Paying for Violence? Spousal Abuse and Son Preference in India

2009

Dominant development policy approaches recommend women's employment on the grounds that it facilitates their empowerment, which in turn is believed to be instrumental in enhancing women's well-being. However, empirical work on the relationship between women's employment status and their well-being as measured by freedom from marital violence yields an ambiguous picture. Motivated by this ambiguity, this paper draws on testimonies of men and women and data gathered from rural Uttar Pradesh, to examine the effect of women's employment and asset status as measured by their participation in paid work and their ownership of property, respectively, on spousal violence. Unlike the existing literature, we treat women's work status and violence as simultaneously determined and find that women's engagement in paid work and ownership of property, are associated with sharp reductions in marital violence.

Sociology and Criminology-Open Access, 2017

In the context of higher rates of child malnutrition and widespread occurrence of spousal violence in India, the present study aimed to explore whether maternal experience of spousal violence have any association with nutritional status of their children using data on selected North and South Indian states from the National Family Health Survey (2005-2006). Our findings from bi-variate and multivariate analysis established spousal violence, which indicates the position of women within family, as a significant factor determining child nutritional status in both regions. Children whose mothers had experienced any form of physical/sexual violence were significantly more likely to be underweight compared to non-abused women. Higher educational attainment among mothers significantly reduced the likelihood of under nutrition among their children. On the other hand, higher body mass index which reflects better health status of mothers also had a significant effect in reducing the chances of malnutrition among children. Thus, the study provided adequate evidences to establish the fact that health and social status of women are critical in determining nutritional status among children. Elevating women's power relative to men's is strongly recommended to reduce malnourishment among children. Integration of violence screening and counselling with MCH programmes could be helpful in addressing the specific needs of women and children and provide essential support.

EconStor Preprints, 2018

A body of extant literature suggests that improvements in wellbeing and empowerment of women in the process of development are hindered by traditional social norms, which are often patriarchic. This paper investigates the link between traditional social norms and women’s status, in particular, the women's attitude towards violence and incidence of spousal violence. The study context is the tribes of Meghalaya and neighboring areas, where there is great variation regarding patriarchic versus matriarchic lineage, residence and inheritance customs. For the statistical analysis, we combine information on social norms prevailing among the different tribes from the comprehensive ethnographic atlas People of India with household-level data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS). In addition to individual characteristics, we find the extent to which social norms determine violence against women and under what prevailing norms working women are better-off.

Proceedings of the 4th World Conference on Women’s Studies, Vol. 3, issue 1, 2018, pp. 16-24, 2018

Abstract: Perpetration of violence by men on their spouses is taking place around the world while a general understanding of the underlying precipitating factors for this violence remains limited and significant knowledge about its root causes is lacking. It is very important to understand the version of spouse violence from the perpetrator’s perspectives too in order to have a complete comprehension of this violence and their violent behavior. A 24 item Men’s Childhood Experience of Gender Inequity Scale [MCE-GE] and an 18 item Men’s Childhood Experience of Violence Scale [MCE-V] are developed as part of this study as there were no cultural context tools available to assess these variables. In order to find out whether their childhood gender inequity attitude and violence experiences bear any impact on the prevalence of spouse violence of men, a study in multiple sites representing a range of gender equality and development indices within Gujarat, India is conducted and the findings indicate that there are very strong statistically significant links between childhood violence experiences and the perpetration of violence against women in adulthood, and this cycle of violence is facilitated and fuelled by the perpetrators’ childhood gender inequity experiences. Keywords: childhood violence experiences, childhood gender inequity experiences, spouse violence, perpetration of violence

2012

CITATIONS 0 READS 66 2 authors, including:

Regional Economic Development Research

Over the past decades, most of the countries in the world have undergone unprecedented demographic changes, such as childbearing preferences. This has been a basis for a large array of research; however, studies so far have focused a little on the impacts of domestic violence and family structure on childbearing preferences which is the overall aim of this study. A logistic regression model was developed using a large data set (8,776) that represents different residential sectors (urban, rural, and estate) in Sri Lanka. Results indicate that women in an extended family structure are more likely to prefer another child than women in a nuclear family. The disaggregated analysis indicates the heterogeneity in childbearing preferences. Precisely, the experience of domestic violence shows a negative impact in rural and urban sectors. The findings suggest providing appropriate programs on reducing family violence, alleviating poverty and encouraging women's education, to achieve heal...

American Journal of Public Health, 2006

Objectives. We examined individual-and community-level influences on domestic violence in Uttar Pradesh, North India.

Journal of biosocial science, 2017

Several studies report that women exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV) are less likely to use contraception, but the evidence that violence consistently constrains contraceptive use is inconclusive. One plausible explanation for this ambiguity is that the effects of violence on contraceptive use depend on whether couples are likely to have conflicting attitudes to it. In particular, although some men may engage in violence to prevent their partners from using contraception, they are only likely to do so if they have reason to oppose its use. Using a longitudinal follow-up to the Indian National Family Health Survey (NFHS-2), conducted among a sample of rural, married women of childbearing age, this study investigated whether the relationship between IPV and contraceptive use is contingent on whether women's contraceptive intentions contradict men's fertility preferences. Results indicate that women experiencing IPV are less likely to undergo sterilization, but only if ...

2018

This paper studies Gender-Based Violence (GBV): husband’s domestic violence, to control wife/partner, using Indian household surveys and crime data. Different types of violence are examined separately, using 2005-6 Demographic and Health Surveys, & other surveys from 1992 to 2017. Much domestic violence seems to be husbands attempting to control wives. India’s 2005 ‘Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act’ appears partially successful in reducing GBV; but there is evidence of a long-term increase in GBV risk. Some possible explanations are investigated.

Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2021

The study identified the socioeconomic determinants of domestic violence suffered by rural women crop farmers in Orlu agricultural zone of Imo State, Nigeria. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 80 rural women crop farmers for the study. Data were collected using structured interview schedule and analyzed with both descriptive and inferential statistical tools. Findings show that out of the fortytwo variables used to capture the nature of domestic violence suffered by women in the study area, only eight reached the cutoff point of 2.50. The major causes of domestic violence identified by the study were disagreement over money (x ̅ =3.0), failure to perform domestic chores (x ̅ = 2.7), disobedience to husband (x ̅ =2.7) and sharing marital problems with friends (x ̅ = 2.7). Respondent's age, duration of marriage, educational status, religion, household size and number of wives were the major determinants of domestic violence. It was recommended that a reorientation be given to the men in the area to enlighten them more on the negative effects of domestic violence.