Risk Of Spousal Violence Research Articles

Domestic Violence in Childhood and the Associated Risk of Spousal Violence in Adulthood: Cultural Influence on Women's Experience

Purpose: To examine the association between childhood violence and spousal violence within the culture of women visiting primary health care centers. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, participants were approached in waiting areas of health care centers. Data about five types of childhood violence and four types of spousal violence were investigated. Chi square was implemented to study the association between spousal violence and women's demographic characteristics. Further, logistic regression associated with 95% CI was implemented to study the risk of spousal violence based on women's exposure to childhood abuse. Results: It was found that women in general were subjects to domestic violence in childhood and during adulthood. Emotional and physical types of childhood violence were the most prevalent in our participants. Regarding spousal violence experience, two-thirds of the women reported control by the spouse. In addition, half of them reported being physically victimized using different violence tactics. Except for sexual abuse, all other types of childhood violence were, generally, significant risk factors for spousal violence victimization. Conclusion: Experiencing childhood violence, witnessing parental violence, tendency to compensate for the deprivation in childhood, and inherited beliefs about spousal violence were factors expected to explain the association between childhood violence and spousal violence in women. Traumatic events in childhood are under-recognized factors in the development of spousal violence in the current population. Therefore, efforts to prevent these forms of violence need to be emphasized by health professionals who are in direct contact with women in different health care facilities.

Prevalence and predictors of spousal violence against women in Afghanistan: evidence from Demographic and Health Survey data.

Spousal violence against women is a serious public health problem that is prevalent in all societies, with one in three women around the world experiencing violence in their lifetime. This study examined the prevalence of spousal violence, and its determinants, in Afghanistan using data from the 2015 Afghanistan Demographic and Health Survey. Univariate, bivariate and logistic regression statistical techniques were used to assess the association of socioeconomic variables with spousal violence. The study sample comprised 20,827 currently married women aged 15-49. Fifty-two per cent of women reported experiencing some form of violence by their husband. A significant association was found between women's justification of violence, women's participation in decision-making in their household (COR=0.476; CI=0.446-0.509) and lower risk of experiencing spousal violence. After adjustment for demographic and socioeconomic factors, women's participation in all of four household decisions, either alone or jointly, was found to be associated with a lower risk of experiencing spousal violence (AOR=0.472; CI=0.431-0.516). In both the crude and adjusted models, the risk of experiencing spousal violence was high if the husband's desire for children was different from that of his wife. In the case of inequality in property ownership, the risk of spousal violence was significantly higher (COR=1.263; CI=1.178-1.353; AOR=1.159; CI=1.051-1.278) when women were joint owners of property compared with when they did not own any property. The findings point to an immediate need for legal and social interventions to prevent spousal violence against women, or at least reduce its prevalence, in Afghanistan.

Is Attitudinal Acceptance of Violence a Risk Factor? An Analysis of Domestic Violence Against Women in Pakistan.

Violence against women (VAW) is a grave problem in Pakistan, and women from all socioeconomic groups are vulnerable to domestic violence in varying degrees. It is argued that patriarchal definition of gender roles may reinforce the internalized inferiority of women. So, it may not be a mere coincidence that a large number of women in Pakistan justify VAW for various reasons. The objectives of this article are threefold: (a) to identify the drivers of VAW, (b) to see if women's attitudinal acceptance of violence is causally linked with observed violence against women, and (c) to see if attitudinal acceptance of violence mediates between the socioeconomic status of women and observed violence. We used data from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) 2012-13. The sample consisted of 3,265 ever married women aged between 15 and 49 years who were interviewed for domestic violence. We used multivariate logit regression analysis to identify the drivers of VAW and used the Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) method for mediation analysis. We found that women's attitudinal acceptance of violence, their childhood experience of violence in their parental household, the education of both husband and wife, and some occupation types significantly predicted their experience of spousal violence. In addition, we found that women's attitudinal acceptance of violence mediated the relationships between socioeconomic factors (education and wealth status) and VAW. The significance of the study lies in the fact that it highlights the need to modify the perceptions of violence through change in educational policy. Among multiple other factors, an increase in the economic status of women is an effective hedge against the risk of spousal violence.

When She Brings Home the Bacon: Labor-Force Participation and the Risk of Spousal Violence against Women

Because employment plays a central role in shaping gender identities and gender relations, it has important implications for understanding women's risks of spousal violence. This article analyzes the relationship between participation in the labor force and the risk of spousal violence against women by treating employment as a symbolic, rather than simply socioeconomic resource. We begin with a latent class analysis that identifies qualitatively distinct patterns of violence against wives. We then examine direct and conditional effects of employment on women's risks of spousal violence. Our results show that the effect of a woman's employment on her risk of spousal violence is conditioned by the employment status Of her partner To some extent, these effects reflect efforts by men to coercively control their female partners. Key Words: employment, spousal violence. One of the major structural transformations of North American society since World War 11 has been the movement of married women into the paid labor force. The consequences of this transformation for family life and for marital relations, in particular, have been the focus of considerable research (e.g., Blood & Wolfe, 1960; England & Farkas, 1986). One aspect of marital relations that has been somewhat neglected by this work is violence by husbands against wives. Although many agree that the employment statuses of wives and husbands are likely to affect the risk of marital violence (Allen & Straus, 1980; Johnson, 1995), empirical research on this relationship is inconclusive. Previous research on the relationship between employment and marital violence has largely focused on whether rates of wife battering vary by general socioeconomic status (Moore, 1997; Schwartz, 1988). From this perspective, employment is but one indicator of access to economic resources, and the explicit or assumed mechanism linking unemployment to violence is either the stress that a lack of resources places on marriages or women's economic dependency. Yet employment provides more than just economic resources. It has crucial symbolic importance for identities, selfesteem, and mental health (Gecas, 1989; Kohn & Schooler, 1983). For men, in particular, working is a critical means of constructing masculinity (Connell, 1995; Thoits, 1992). For this reason, the effects on marital violence of employment as a symbolic rather than a solely economic resource need to be considered. We do so by assessing the independent and combined effects of wives' and husbands' employment statuses on husbands' violence against their wives, controlling for other measures of socioeconomic status. This allows us to evaluate different theoretical perspectives on violence against wives, as well as shed light on the complex relationships among class, gender relations, and marital violence. Employment, Economic Resources, and Spousal Violence Employment statuses of husbands and wives are conventionally conceptualized as indicators of access to economic resources. From one perspective, diminished resources lead to stress, frustration, and conflict that can culminate in violence between spouses (Dutton, 1988; Gelles, 1974). Resource deprivation that accompanies unemployment should thus increase risks of spousal violence. Violence should be particularly prevalent in relationships in which both partners are unemployed, but employment of either spouse should lessen the risk of violence. If employment is simply an indicator of economic resources, however, it should have little effect on spousal violence, independent of more direct measures of economic resources, such as household income. From another perspective, it is women's employment that affects their risks of spousal violence. Kalmuss and Straus (1990) argue that employed women are less dependent on their husbands, whereas unemployed women lack the resources to leave abusive relationships or negotiate changes in their partners' behaviors. …