Economic Policies and Intimate Partner Violence Prevention: Emerging Complexities in the Literature

Abstract

Although the question of whether economic policies serve to reduce rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) has long been raised, rigorous tests of this question have only begun to take place recently. Given the mixed evidence to date, much remains unknown about the circumstances in which a positive or negative relationship holds between changes in financial well-being and IPV. We describe an empirically based theoretical model that may link economic empowerment to IPV and that highlights research questions for further testing. This model reflects two theoretical pathways through which economic policies may reduce IPV: A program may activate social and psychological empowerment as protective factors and a program may deactivate cognitive and behavioral risk factors such as stress and substance abuse. We then consider the relevance of each of a range of economic policies and review existing experimental evidence regarding the effect of such programs on IPV. We discuss unconditional and conditional cash transfers, savings programs, microfinance and income generation programs, and economic programs combined with relationship-related training. Gaps in research on this topic and emerging complexities in the literature suggest the following three key areas that would benefit from greater research and evaluation: comparison across programs based on size and design, assessment of the returns to economic empowerment of young adults, and more evaluations in high-income countries.

The effect of a savings intervention on women’s intimate partner violence victimization: heterogeneous findings from a randomized controlled trial in Colombia

“…These heterogeneous findings align with other economic and social empowerment interventions for women that discovered heterogeneous or context-dependent effects [1–5]. For example, cash stipends improved long-term economic outcomes only for young women in settings where there are economic opportunities [1].…”

“…Economic interventions have recently caught the attention of public health researchers interested in social empowerment and intimate partner violence, thanks to the success of trials that have demonstrated widespread effects of cash transfers on social and health outcomes [2, 5]. Our research sounds a cautionary note on two grounds.…”

“…However, systematic tests of this relationship have only recently begun to appear in the literature [1]. Even fewer trials have specifically examined whether economic empowerment reduces intimate partner violence (IPV), and these trials have yielded inconsistent results [2–5].…”

“…Little is known about whether savings accounts also empower women socially and psychologically, in the form of increased actual control over household decisions and in the form of perceived control and self-efficacy such as confidence and felt independence [10]. Relatedly, it is unknown whether this kind of social empowerment has the effect of preventing or reducing IPV [2, 5]. Ecological theories of IPV, which analyze influences from individual to societal, hold that power dynamics at micro and macro levels can render individual women vulnerable to IPV [11].…”

“…Previous research has shown that, to improve their economic standing, poor women may require an economic intervention to be bundled with support in areas such as life skills and health [1]. In addition, the literature on IPV reduction sometimes finds that the effectiveness of interventions depends on characteristics of women and their partners, such as relative economic position and initial relationship quality [3–5]. Engaging a random sample of women, who varied in relationship quality, income sources, and other dimensions of vulnerability, enabled us to investigate these heterogeneous effects.…”