Abstract
BackgroundDomestic violence (DV) against women is a serious human rights abuse and well recognised global public health concern. The occurrence of DV is negatively associated with the educational level of spouses but studies dealing with educational discrepancies of spouses show contradicting results: Wives with higher education than their husbands were more likely to ever experience DV as compared to equally educated couples. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between spousal education gap (SEG) and the prevalence and severity of DV in India and Bangladesh.MethodsNationally representative data collected through the 2005/2006 Indian National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) and 2007 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) were used. In total, we analysed data of 69,805 women aged 15–49 years (Bangladesh: 4,195 women, India: 65,610 women). In addition to univariate and bivariable analyses, a multinomial logistic regression model was used to quantify the association between education gap and less severe as well as severe domestic violence. Adjustment was made for age, religion, and family structure.ResultsWives with higher education than their husbands were less likely to experience less severe (OR = 0.83, 95% CI: 0.77–0.89) and severe (OR = 0.79, 95% CI: 0.72–0.87) DV as compared to equally low-educated spouses (reference group). Equally high-educated couples revealed the lowest likelihood of experiencing DV (severe violence: OR 0.43, CI 0.39–0.48; less severe violence: OR 0.59, CI 0.55–0.63). The model’s goodness of fit was low (Nagelkerke’s R2 = 0.152).ConclusionsOur analysis revealed no increased DV among wives with a higher educational level than their husbands. Moreover, the results point towards a decrease of severe violence with an increase in education levels among spouses. However, the model did not explain a satisfying amount of DV. Therefore, further research should be done to reveal unknown determinants so that suitable interventions to reduce DV can be developed.
Highlights
Domestic violence (DV) against women is a serious human rights abuse and well recognised global public health concern
Regarding spousal education gap (SEG), there were more couples in Bangladesh with higher educational level of wives than their husbands compared to India (Bangladesh 21.9%, India 9.8%)
Further investigation may focus on the relationship between SEG and DV with a special focus on the extent of the SEG as this issue was not investigated in the present study
Summary
Domestic violence (DV) against women is a serious human rights abuse and well recognised global public health concern. Violence against women is a serious human rights violation and an important global public health problem with substantial consequences for women’s physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive health [1,2,3,4,5,6]. In rural areas of Bangladesh husband’s education beyond the tenth grade was associated with a decreased risk of violence. Higher educational levels of husbands were associated with lower odds of IPV, which means that a low educated husband is a risk factor for spousal violence [10,11,12]
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