A VALIDATION OF A NON-LINEAR RELATIONSHIP ON THE PREDICTORS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN (VAW) BY SYMBOLIC REGRESSION

Abstract

Violence against women is a global public health problem that has serious adverse effects on women’s physical, mental, and reproductive health. It is increasingly recognized as a public health issue because of the expanding evidence based on the growth of research documenting owing to its magnitude and health effects on women despite the government’s effort of eradicating this societal dilemma. Utilizing the symbolic regression, the researcher was able to determine the non-linear relationship of the variables (physical injury and rape case) in the total incidence rate of violence against women across the globe. It also shows which among the predictors greatly affect the high incidence rate of violence to its total number of violence. The effects of violence changes as the number of violence are varied because physical injury may no longer mean a direct impact to the lives of women nowadays, but rather some would only consider it as part of their daily lives or behavior. However, increasing the number of physical injuries increases the rate of violence against women. The decrease in the trend indicates an inverse relation of the two variables which would mean that rape cases are not considered as part of the emerging violence against women. There is a positive and direct relationship among the variables. Physical injury affects the rate of violence. However, both physical injury and rape cases incidence serves as the most common contributory factors regarding why the competence of women in the society has been greatly affected.