Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a persistent social problem in Zimbabwe and has been linked to dominant patriarchal attitudes that promote the superiority of men in marital relationships while denying women agency. Using the 2015 Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey data, we examined the influence of female autonomy on IPV. Our analysis was restricted to 2847 women who were in some form of sexual union. Consistent with earlier studies, our results show that more than 40% of the women had experienced some form of IPV. The most prevalent forms of IPV was emotional violence, followed by physical violence and sexual violence. Low levels of economic autonomy and supportive attitudes towards wife-beating increased the risk of IPV, while late marriage reduced the risk of all forms of IPV. The findings provide a basis for interventions that may increase economic control and improve decision making for women, although the association between economic violence and economic decision making requires further research that examines the possibility of reverse causality.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive social challenge with severe health and demographic consequences. Global statistics indicate that more than a third of women have experienced IPV at some point in their lives. In South Africa, IPV is considered a significant contributor to the country’s broader problem with violence and a leading cause of femicide. Consequently, IPV has been the major focus of legislation and research across different disciplines. The present article aims to contribute to the growing scholarly literature by predicting factors that are associated with the risk of experiencing IPV. We used the 2016 South African Demographic and Health Survey dataset and restricted our analysis to 1,816 ever-married women who had complete information on the variables that were used to generate IPV. Prior research has mainly used regression analysis to identify correlates of IPV; however, while regression analysis can test a priori specified effects, it cannot capture unspecified inter-relationship across factors. To address this limitation, we opted for machine learning methods, which identify hidden and complex patterns and relationships in the data. Our results indicate that the fear of the husband is the most critical factor in determining the experience of IPV. In other words, the risk of IPV in South Africa is associated more with the husband or partner’s characteristics than the woman’s. The models developed in this study can be used to develop interventions by different stakeholders such as social workers, policymakers, and or other interested partners.

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Early sexual debut is of major concern because it is a correlate for health and economic shocks experienced in adulthood. In South Africa, this concern has provided impetus for research directed at the HIV and AIDS epidemic, teenage pregnancy and the effect of adolescent sexual behaviour on persistence in school. Of interest to the present study is high school completion, which is a well-established empirical barometer of adult socioeconomic opportunities. Using data from the five waves of the Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS), this paper examines the association between sexual behaviours initiated in pre- and early adolescence and high school completion rates. The CAPS study is a longitudinal survey that was designed to investigate young people's (aged 14-22 years) educational attainment and sexual behaviours in Cape Town, South Africa. The sample was constituted from 3213 individuals who had initiated sex during their teenage years and the analysis was undertaken when the youngest cohort was aged 21, an age at which they should have completed high school if they were on time. Logistic regression models were fitted separately for males and females. Overall, the results reveal that early sexual debut is correlated with long-term negative educational outcomes. Individuals who experience early sexual debut are less likely to complete high school than their counterparts who make their sexual debut later on in life. This effect is worse for Africans, who also disproportionately have an earlier sexual debut than other race groups. Apart from race however, the findings also reinforce the effect of other demographic factors on high school completion, namely, place of residence and family socioeconomic status as measured by parental education and household income. Hence, early sexual debut adds another layer of inequality and worsens the plight of Africans, females, those living in rural areas and those who come from low-income families.

Background The association between girl child marriage and education is widely acknowledged; however, there is no large body of demographic studies from Zimbabwe that have addressed this aspect. This study aimed to examine the extent to which child marriage affects one academic milestone, i.e. completion of the Ordinary Level, the first cycle of high school, which is also the most critical indicator of educational achievement in Zimbabwe. Methods We used the 2015 Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey and extracted 2380 cases of ever-married women aged between 20–29 years. We applied a propensity score-based method, which allowed us to mimic a hypothetical experiment and estimate outcomes between treated and untreated subjects. Results Our results suggest that child age at first marriage is concentrated between the ages of 15–22, with the typical age at first marriage being 18 years. Both logistic regression and PSM models revealed that early marriage decreased the chances of completing the first cycle of high school. Regression adjustment produced an estimate of prevalence ratio (PR) of 0.446 (95% CI: 0.374–0.532), while PSM resulted in an estimate (PR = 0.381; 95% CI: 0.298–0.488). Conclusion These results have implications for Zimbabwe’s development policy and suggest that girl-child marriage is a significant barrier to educational attainment. If not addressed, the country will most likely fail to meet sustainable development Goal 4.2 and 5.3. Social change interventions that target adults and counter beliefs about adolescent sexuality and prepubescent marriage should be put in place. Moreover, interventions that keep teenage girls in school beyond the first cycle of high school should be prioritised.

This study examined the relationship between women’s empowerment and different dimensions of emotional violence in Zimbabwe using cluster analysis and logistic regression. We used data from the 2015 Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey, a nationally representative household study of fertility, health, and mortality indicators among women aged 15 to 49 years. Our sample consisted of 2,966 currently partnered women at the time of the survey. Our results revealed that more than 60% of the women had experienced emotional intimate partner violence (IPV), of which controlling behaviors were the most prevalent form. The results showed that women empowerment in Zimbabwe is primarily characterized by economic empowerment, household bargaining power, and freedom of movement. At the same time, educational attainment, health decision-making, and attitudes toward gender-based violence had expected relatively weak empowerment effects. The results also revealed that economically empowered women were less likely to experience denigrating or threatening behaviors, whereas those who had high levels of freedom of movement had a lower risk of experiencing all forms of emotional IPV except for threatening behavior. These findings suggest that emotional IPV is a considerable societal problem in Zimbabwe, and interventions that increase economic empowerment and freedom of movement may reduce the risk. Future research studies may examine the likelihood of reverse causality between women empowerment and emotional IPV.

Globally, there is growing concern about student progression in most higher education institutions. In this study, we examined patterns of persistence among students who began their engineering degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in 2012 and 2013. The sample was restricted to 1370 incoming students who were tracked to 2019, allowing for a 7-year graduation period for the initial cohort. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics as well as the decision tree approach – a highly visual data-mining technique which helps identify subgroups and relationships that are often difficult to detect through traditional statistical methods. The results from these analyses indicate that up to 50% of students enrolled in the School of Engineering had chosen engineering as their first choice. Approximately 40% had persisted in engineering, 50% had withdrawn by the time of this survey, while the remaining 10% were still registered in the engineering programme. Departure from engineering occurs most in the first year, while graduation most likely occurs after 5 years of registration. Student persistence in engineering can also be classified based on first-year accumulated credits, admission point scores, race, and financial aid, of which first-year accumulated credits is the most critical factor. Overall, our study suggests that understanding failure in the first year might be the missing link in our understanding of student persistence in engineering.

Childhood undernutrition is a major public health challenge in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Nigeria. Determinants of child malnutrition may have substantial spatial heterogeneity. Failure to account for these small area spatial variations may cause child malnutrition intervention programs and policies to exclude some sub-populations and reduce the effectiveness of such interventions. This study uses the Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure (CIAF) and a geo-additive regression model to investigate Nigeria’s prevalence and risk factors of childhood undernutrition. The geo-additive model permits a flexible, joint estimation of linear, non-linear, and spatial effects of some risk factors on the nutritional status of under-five children in Nigeria. We draw on data from the most recent Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (2018). While the socioeconomic and environmental determinants generally support literature findings, distinct spatial patterns were observed. In particular, we found CIAF hotspots in the northwestern and northeastern districts. Some child-related factors (Male gender: OR = 1.315; 95% Credible Interval (CrI): 1.205, 1.437) and having diarrhoea: OR = 1.256; 95% CrI: 1.098, 1.431) were associated with higher odds of CIAF. Regarding household and maternal characteristics, media exposure was associated with lower odds of CIAF (OR = 0.858; 95% CrI: 0.777, 0.946). Obese maternal BMI was associated with lower odds of CIAF (OR = 0.691; 95% CrI: 0.621, 0.772), whereas, mothers classified as thin were associated with higher odds of CIAF (OR = 1.216; 95% CrI: 1.055, 1.411). Anthropometric failure is highly prevalent in Nigeria and spatially distributed. Therefore, localised interventions that aim to improve the nutritional status of under-five children should be considered to avoid the under-coverage of the regions that deserve more attention.