Intimate Partner Violence and Its Associated Factors: A Multidimensional Analysis in the Context of India

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a complex phenomenon that involves multiple dimensions of violence and multiple levels of risk factors. This study explores the incidence of IPV experienced by married women in India from a multidimensional perspective and assesses its change during 2005–2006 and 2015–2016 based on the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) unit-level data. A latent class analysis is used to address the degree of multidimensional IPV for identifying the distinct subgroups of women who experience different acts of IPV in India and to explore the multiple risk factors associated with it, which can inform prevention and intervention strategies to reduce its occurrence and impact. Our analysis shows that 39.5 million women were victims of at least one form of violence, of which 4.35 million were severe victims in 2015–2016. There has been a significant reduction in the share of victims of IPV, which was not uniform across different subgroups of women. The results of ordered logit regression reveal that educated couples and those women having decision-making power are less likely to experience higher degree of IPV, whereas the opposite scenario prevails for women who have the attitude of acceptance of violence and experience higher marital control by husband.