Empowered but abused? A moderated mediation analysis to explore the relationship between wife's relative resources, relational empowerment and physical abuse

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There is a growing body of literature focusing on the direct relationship between women's relative resources (WRR) and intimate partner violence (IPV). However, the underlying mechanism remains largely unexplored. Grounded in the popular sociological theories, Relative Resource Theory (RRT) and Gendered Resource Theory (GRT), this study addresses the research gap by proposing a moderated-mediation model to i) understand the process through which WRR influences the relational empowerment and violence victimization, and, ii) explain the role of husband's patriarchal attitude in the proposed linkages. We posit that the relationship between WRR and IPV is mediated by relational empowerment, and husband's patriarchal attitude moderates the relationship between relational empowerment and physical abuse. The proposed model is tested in the Indian context using secondary data collected from 47,514 married couples. As our variables of interest were latent constructs, we first used factor analysis in AMOS v.22. Then, using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique, the proposed model is tested in SPSS v.22 using the bootstrap Confidence Interval (C.I.) method. In our study sample, about 28% of ever-married women reported experiencing spousal violence in the last 12 months. The study finds that WRR is a significant predictor of relational empowerment (β = 0.21, p < 0.01), and relational empowerment is negatively associated (β = −0.06; p < 0.01) with violence victimization, thus supporting mediating role of relational empowerment in WRR-Abuse linkage. The interaction of the husband's patriarchal attitude with relational empowerment significantly predicts violence victimization. Our study results indicate the critical role of socio-cultural norms, rooted in patriarchy, in understanding IPV. The study findings suggest that the potential of women empowerment initiatives against IPV is conditional on men's progressive attitude. The study findings call for acknowledging the complexity of the interaction between patriarchal attitude and IPV on the one hand, and women's position in society, in any attempt at empowerment.