Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Scandinavia and Southern Europe

Abstract

Abstract This article will focus on the significant differences shown by the data found by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) survey of women who may or may not have suffered physical Intimate Partner Violence against Women (IPVAW). The authors present the model and result of the discriminant function analysis that they carried out separately for the countries from southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, and Malta) and Scandinavia (Denmark, Finland, and Sweden). Their hypotheses were that women with less income, lower educational level, who are divorced, who have children, are from rural areas, who are housewives, with bad health, older aged, immigrants, and those who had suffered some physical violence from other people – apart from the partner or ex-partner –, will suffer more violence than the rest of women. One of the most relevant conclusions from their analysis was this: the more often a woman experienced physical violence from someone other than a partner/ex-partner beginning at the age of 15 years old, the more probable it will be that she will suffer IPVAW. The authors discuss this and other significant findings here.