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Intimate Partner Violence: Determinants, Impacts, and Strategies

Paper Session

Friday, Jan. 3, 2020 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (PDT)

Manchester Grand Hyatt, Old Town B
Hosted By: International Association for Feminist Economics
  • Chair: Yasemin Dildar, California State University-San Bernardino

Women in Policing and Domestic Violence Attrition: Evidence from Tracking Calls within the Legal System

Sofia Amaral
,
University of Munich and ifo Institute

Abstract

Domestic violence crimes are unlike others in many aspects: victims delay the search for formal-support, attrition within the legal system and rates of repeated incidence are high. We investigate the role of the gender of officers in call-rooms, first-response and investigative policing teams on measures of recidivism, policing quality and attrition. We use a unique administrative data from over 300,000 incidents linked to information on the gender of police officers. Our identification exploits a natural experiment that randomly allocates call handlers and first-response officers to incidents. We find that incidents received by female call-handlers are dispatched faster. Exposure to call-handlers has no impact on recidivism, legal attrition or quality of supply of policing. Incidents attended by women have a faster response and a lengthier duration of the responses. Recidivism rates and attrition are also reduced. Deterrence of domestic violence is challenging and this paper shows that having more women improves the quality of policing provision.

Is Economic Empowerment a Protective Factor against Intimate Partner Violence? Evidence from Turkey

Yasemin Dildar
,
California State University-San Bernardino

Abstract

"This paper analyzes the relationship between women’s economic empowerment
and the incidence of intimate partner violence (IPV) using data from the National
Survey on Domestic Violence against Women in Turkey (2008, 2014). Two
hypotheses are tested: (i) women’s economic independence reduces the risk of
partner violence as suggested by household bargaining models; (ii) women’s
vulnerability to IPV increases when their economic situation improves relative to
their partner’s as suggested by a male backlash model. Women’s employment has
a positive effect on the exposure to IPV but it is not statistically significant after
controlling for the simultaneous causality between employment status and IPV.
Earning more income than their partners, on the other hand, lowers the risk of IPV
by 9.7%, providing evidence for the household bargaining model."

Female Employment and Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence from Syrian Refugee Inflows to Turkey

Bilge Erten
,
Northeastern University

Abstract

We examine the causal impact of an exogenous change in the employment opportunities for women on the probability of experiencing domestic violence. We focus on a developing country with a high prevalence of domestic violence and relatively low levels of women's empowerment. In particular, we exploit the differential arrivals of Syrian refugees across provinces of Turkey as an exogenous supply shock to female employment. We employ a distance-based instrumental variables strategy to account for the potential endogeneity of refugee inflows into Turkish provinces. Our results show that the Syrian refugee inflows had a negative impact on the labor market outcomes of Turkish women. In contrast, we find no evidence of a significant impact for male labor market outcomes. Our findings also reveal a significant decline in intimate partner violence in those areas that received a higher share of Syrian refugees. Examining alternative channels, we find no impact of refugees on partner characteristics, gender attitudes or cohabitation patterns. Our results are consistent with an instrumental theory of violence, whereby a decline in a woman's earning opportunities reduces the incentives of her male partners to use violence as a means of extracting rents from her.

Intimate Partner Violence and Economic Well-Being in Later Life: Longitudinal Evidence from the United States

Jacqueline Strenio
,
Southern Oregon University

Abstract

More than 37% of females and 30% of males in the United States report experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) during their lifetimes, the majority of whom first experience it before the age of 24. However, little research has looked at the long-run economic consequences of IPV. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a nationally representative longitudinal dataset, this study extends the literature by incorporating a dual measure of intimate partner violence, accounting for both prevalence and intensity. Additionally, it analyzes outcomes separately for male and female victims using regression analysis and propensity score matching. Results imply significant economic penalties associated with IPV for both male and female victims along multiple dimensions including educational attainment, perceived socioeconomic status, and economic hardship in later life. Despite comparable consequences, victimization is more prevalent among females indicating that the adverse economic effects may be more widespread in this population.
Discussant(s)
Olga Shemyakina
,
Georgia Institute of Technology
Giulia La Mattina
,
University of South Florida
Ali Jalali
,
Cornell University
Ana Karen Negrete Garcia
,
University of Guanajuato
JEL Classifications
  • D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics
  • B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches