Abstract
BackgroundIntimate partner violence (IPV) is pervasive throughout the world, with profound consequences for women’s health. While women’s ‘economic empowerment’ is touted as a potential means to reduce IPV, evidence is mixed as to the role of different economic factors in determining women’s risk. This paper explores associations and potential pathways between women’s income and experience of IPV, in Mwanza city, Tanzania.MethodsWe use data from married/cohabiting women (N = 740) enrolled in the MAISHA study, a cluster randomised trial of an IPV prevention intervention. Women were interviewed at baseline and 29-months later. We use logistic regression to model cross-sectional (baseline) and longitudinal associations between: a woman’s monthly income (quartiles) and her past year risk of physical IPV, sexual IPV and economic abuse; and a woman’s relative financial contribution to the household (same/less than partner; more than partner) and past year physical IPV and sexual IPV.ResultsAt baseline, 96% of respondents reported earning an income and 28% contributed more financially to the household than their partner did. Higher income was associated with lower past-year physical IPV risk at baseline and longitudinally, and lower sexual IPV at baseline only. No clear associations were seen between income and economic abuse. Higher relative financial contribution was associated with increased physical IPV and sexual IPV among all women at baseline, though only among control women longitudinally. Higher income was associated with several potential pathways to reduced IPV, including reduced household hardship, fewer arguments over the partner’s inability to provide for the family, improved relationship dynamics, and increased relationship dissolution. Those contributing more than their partner tended to come from more disadvantaged households, argue more over their partner’s inability to provide, and have worse relationship dynamics.ConclusionsWhile women’s income was protective against IPV, women who contributed more financially than their partners had greater IPV risk. Poverty and tensions over men’s inability to provide emerge as potentially important drivers of this association. Interventions to empower women should not only broaden women’s access to economic resources and opportunities, but also work with women and men to address men’s livelihoods, male gender roles and masculinity norms.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov #NCT02592252, registered retrospectively (13/08/2015).
Highlights
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is pervasive throughout the world, with profound consequences for women’s health
709 (96%) women in our sample who were currently married or living as married were earning an income at baseline, and 208 (28%) reported contributing more financially to the household than their husband did (Table 1)
How do individual, partner- and household-level characteristics differ according to women’s income and relative financial contribution to the household? (Table 1) Women’s income was not systematically related to age, though older women were more likely than younger women to contribute more to the household than their partner (42% of those in the oldest age-group versus 15% of those in the youngest age-group)
Summary
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is pervasive throughout the world, with profound consequences for women’s health. The consequences of violence are far reaching for women’s mental and physical health [2,3,4], their participation in social and economic activity, and the health, education and wellbeing of their children [5]. Interventions that seek to economically ‘empower’ women have been identified as a potential means through which to reduce women’s risk of intimate partner violence (IPV). Microfinance-based interventions, cash transfer programmes, and other forms of livelihoods programming have in some cases and in some settings been shown to reduce women’s risk of IPV [6,7,8,9]. Posited mechanisms through which such interventions may work [8] include: (i) increased economic security leading to reduced poverty-related stress, improved mental health, and concomitant reductions in men’s alcohol use and aggression [7, 10]; (ii) increased household cash flow reducing conflict over money and resources; and (iii) a shift in relationship power dynamics resulting from the woman’s increased financial and social confidence, her increased capacity to leave (or threaten to leave) a relationship, and her partner’s increased appreciation of her worth [11, 12]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
