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

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.

Augmenting women empowerment: a systematic literature review on microfinance-led developmental interventions

“…Microfinance services tend to empower women politically and cause tension in the household, and women are subject to domestic violence. There are cases, women suffered from verbal and physical assault caused by lending groups (Rahman, 1999; Naved and Persson, 2005; Khan and Bibi, 2011; Ganle et al , 2015; Bulte and Lensink, 2019; Bulte and Lensink, 2020; Huis et al , 2020). Evidence suggests that an improvement in women’s agency leads to social capital, enabling them to challenge social norms and practices with kinship, meetings, physical mobility (Hansen, 2015) and collective action (Khan and Khan, 2016; Rahman et al , 2017).…”

“…Political empowerment is represented by nine studies focused on impact of microfinance on women in public participation (Rooyen et al , 2012; Sanyal, 2009; Banerjee et al , 2015), collective action (Kim et al , 2007; Weber and Ahmad, 2014; Datta, 2015), household and societal politics (Kabeer, 2008; Duvendack and Palmer-Jones, 2017; Hunt and Kasynathan, 2002; Parwez et al , 2018; Mayoux, 2005; Pitt et al , 2006; Montgomery and Weiss, 2011; Weber and Ahmad, 2014; Abdullah and Quayes, 2016; Krenz et al , 2014; Rahman et al , 2017), freedom of movement and violence (Hunt and Kasynathan, 2002; Krenz et al , 2014; Banerjee et al , 2015; Mayoux, 2005; Bulte and Lensink, 2019; Bulte and Lensink, 2020; Huis et al , 2020), decrease in domestic violence (Swain and Wallentin, 2009; Weber and Ahmad, 2014; Naved and Persson, 2005; Khan and Bibi, 2011; Ganle et al , 2015; Rahman, 1999), political activism with participation in forms of social groups (Sanyal, 2009; Hansen, 2015; Pitt et al , 2006; Banerjee et al , 2015) and collective action (Kim et al , 2007; Weber and Ahmad, 2014; Datta, 2015).…”

Exploring the association between attitudes towards wife beating and intimate partner violence using a dyadic approach in three sub-Saharan African countries

“…Hence, several studies have attempted to understand them, with some of the risk factors in SSA fairly consistent across different parts of the world 3. For instance, studies have found the individual-level factors, such as a woman’s age, education, alcohol use, spousal age difference, age at first marriage and decision-making autonomy, among other predictors, to be associated with IPV risk 13–15. However, in SSA, many scholars have mainly attributed IPV to the enduring patriarchal traditions that promote male dominance in many African countries 16 17.…”

Identifying the Dimensions of Women’s Empowerment to Coping Effectively with Domestic Violence: A Qualitative Study in Iran

“…However, despite the empowerment located at the heart of the anti-domestic violence movement, consensus on the defining properties of this construct has remained unclear (Cattaneo & Goodman, 2015). There is little similarity between different cultures on how different components of empowerment are related to violence, making the relationship between empowerment and DVAW complicated and perhaps bidirectional or culturally dependent (Abramsky et al, 2011;Bulte & Lensink, 2021;VanderEnde et al, 2012).…”