Empowerment and intimate partner violence: Domestic abuse when household income is uncertain

Erwin Bulte*, Robert Lensink

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Intimate partner violence is an important global health problem that remains ill understood. Several studies have documented that female empowerment may increase violence against women—the so-called “male backlash.” We propose a utilitarian explanation for this phenomenon, based on the assumption that violence may be used as an instrument to affect the distribution of the household surplus between the spouses. Our main result is that promoting norms of gender equity (or otherwise enhancing the prospects of divorced women) may inadvertently promote violence against women in settings where production outcomes are uncertain.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)148-162
JournalReview of Development Economics
Volume25
Issue number1
Early online date17 Sept 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2021

Keywords

  • domestic abuse
  • female empowerment
  • gender norms
  • spousal violence

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