Domestic Violence Against Women of Japanese Descent in Los Angeles

Abstract

Using a more inclusive, culturally responsive measure, this population-based study of women of Japanese descent contrasts two methods of estimating prevalence of domestic violence. Eighty percent of respondents reported experiencing a male partner's violence during their lifetimes—a conventional estimation. A new method took into account the respondent's perceptions about the partner's acts—whether she considered her partner's behavior abusive and placed it within the context of an abusive relationship—and yielded the lifetime prevalence of 61%. Attention to culturally based manifestations of domestic violence and the respondent's perceptions provide additional dimensions of data grounded in women's subjective experiences.