Abstract
We study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on domestic violence in 11 countries with different ex-ante incidence of domestic violence (DV) and lockdown intensity. We use a novel measure of DV incidents that allows us to make cross-country comparisons: a Google search intensity index of DV-related topics. Our difference-in-difference estimates show an increase in DV search intensity after lockdown (30%), with larger effects as more people stayed at home (measured with Google Mobility Data). The peak of the increase in DV appears, on average, 5 weeks after the introduction of the lockdown. While we observe that the positive impact on DV is a widespread phenomenon, the effect in developed countries is more than twice as strong as in Latin American countries. We show that the difference in impact correlates with the intensity of compliance with stay-at-home measures in the two groups.
Highlights
Violence against women is a serious health concern all around the world
The situation may have worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the increase in unemployment and be cause the stay-at-home orders forced victims to stuck at home with abusers and decrease their possibility of escaping from a violent situation (Aizer, 2010; Anderberg et al, 2016; Bhalotra et al, 2020b)
In this paper we analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on domestic violence in several countries, using a novel indicator of its incidence based on Google searches of DV related topics
Summary
Violence against women is a serious health concern all around the world. About 1 in 3 (30%) of women worldwide have experienced some form of physical and/or sexual vio lence by their intimate partner in their lifetime (WHO, 2013). In this paper we analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on domestic violence in several countries, using a novel indicator of its incidence based on Google searches of DV related topics This indicator overcomes the issues listed before, as it comes from an almost real time high-frequency data (daily) available for many countries. Notes: The figure above plots the average number of weekly search intensity of domestic violence related topics across 11 countries by week since lockdown in 2020 (bold black line) and previous four years (grey lines), and the residential mobility index in 2020 (blue line). We run an event-study and a difference-in-difference model with this data in order to estimate the magnitude of the impact of the lockdown on our index of DV incidence
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