Research papers
Generating New Evidence to Address Violence Against Women: Realizing Women’s Rights
Published Papers
Job Displacement, Unemployment Benefits and Domestic Violence
We estimate impacts of male job loss, female job loss, and male unemployment bene- fits on domestic violence (DV) in Brazil. We merge individual-level employment and welfare registers with different measures of domestic violence: judicial cases brought to criminal courts, the use of public shelters by victims, and mandatory DV notifications by health providers. Leveraging mass layoffs for identification, we first show that both male and female job loss, independently, lead to large and pervasive increases in DV. Using a regression discontinuity design, we then show that access to unemployment benefits does not reduce DV while benefits are being paid, and it leads to higher DV risk once benefits expire. Our findings can be explained by the negative income shock brought by job loss and by increased exposure of victims to perpetrators, as partners tend to spend more time together after displacement. Although unemployment ben- efits partially offset the income drop following job loss, they reinforce the exposure shock as they increase unemployment duration. Since our results cannot be explained by prominent DV theories, we propose a simple model formalizing these mechanisms.
Dynamic impacts of lockdown on domestic violence: Evidence from multiple policy shifts in Chile
We leverage staggered implementation of lockdown across Chile’s 346 municipalities, identifying dynamic impacts on domestic violence (DV). Using administrative data, we find lockdown imposition increases indicators of DV-related distress, while decreasing DV reports to the police. We identify male job loss as a mechanism driving distress, and female job loss as driving decreased reporting. Stimulus payments to poor households act on both margins, their impacts partially differentiated by lockdown status. Once lockdown is lifted, police reports surge but we see a ratchet effect in distress. Our findings accentuate the controversy around welfare impacts of lockdown mandates.
Perceptions of workplace sexual harassment and support for policy action in the UK.
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Firm responses to legislation on workplace sexual harassment.
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Does treating depression reduce victimization from intimate partner violence?
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Do psychotherapeutic interventions provide resilience to future negative shocks?
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Experimental research on violence against women- A survey.
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Intimate partner violence: The influence of job opportunities for men and women.
This study examines the association of unemployment variation with intimate partner violence using representative data from thirty-one developing countries, from 2005 to 2016. It finds that a 1 percent increase in the male unemployment rate is associated with an increase in the incidence of physical violence against women by 0.50 percentage points, or 2.75 percent. This is consistent with financial and psychological stress generated by unemployment. Female unemployment rates have the opposite effect, a 1 percent decrease being associated with an increase in the probability of victimization of 0.52 percentage points, or 2.87 percent. That an improvement in women's employment opportunities is associated with increased violence is consistent with male backlash. The study finds that this pattern of behaviors emerges entirely from countries in which women have more limited access to divorce than men.
Gender, crime, and punishment: Evidence from women police stations in India.
We examine the impact of establishing women police stations (WPS) on reporting of gender- based violence. Using administrative crime data and exploiting staggered implementation across Indian cities, we find that the opening of WPS is associated with an increase in police reports of crimes against women of 29 percent, a result driven by domestic violence. This appears to reflect reporting rather than incidence as we find no changes in femicide or in survey-reported domestic violence. We also find some evidence of an increase in women's labor supply following WPS opening, consistent with women feeling safer once the costs of reporting violence fall.
Population sex ratios and crime against women: Long-run effects of sex-selection.
This paper investigates the consequences of sex imbalance in India’s population for violence against women. We match administrative crime data by category to age-specific sex ratios in census data by district across four decades and, to analyse mechanisms, we also use census data on marriage rates and, household survey data on attitudes to violence against women and marriage quality measures. We find that a surplus of men at age 20-24 increases crimes committed against women, and that this explains about 21% of the rise in gender- based violence. Although less robust, there is some evidence that the youth sex ratio also raises non-gendered forms of violence, but we find no discernible impact upon property and economic crime. In probing mechanisms, we show that marriage rates, marriage quality and attitudes to violence against women are all modified by population sex ratios.
Disability severity and risk of new or recurrent intimate partner violence - Evidence from a cohort study in rural Pakistan.
Background: Women with disabilities experience higher rates of intimate partner violence (IPV). Evidence sug-
gests this violence often manifests in more subtle and severe forms over longer periods of time. There is limited
evidence on this association in the Pacific Islands region, despite facing one of the highest global prevalences of
IPV.
Objective: Examine the prevalence of disability and the association between disability and types of IPV experience
among women in rural Samoa as part of the EVE Project.
Methods: This study analysed cross-sectional data collected with nine communities in rural Samoa between
December 2022 and February 2023. Enumerators collected data with 707 women on tablets using REDCap. IPV
was measured using the standardised Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) domestic violence methodology.
Disability was assessed using the Washington Group questions. Logistic regression was conducted to examine the
association between disability and experiences of IPV (physical, sexual, emotional and economic violence)
among women.
Results: Having a disability was significantly associated with increased IPV experience among women in this
study. When controlling for age and education, women with severe disability were significantly more likely to
experience sexual (OR 4.31; p=0.01) and emotional (OR 2.87; p=0.02) IPV, when compared to women with no
disability.
Conclusions: Our findings point towards a greater vulnerability of women with disabilities to IPV, and particularly
sexual and emotional IPV, in rural Samoa. Qualitative research in partnership with women with disabilities is
essential to inform the design of measurement tools and prevention programmes that are grounded in the
context-specific experiences and needs of all women with disabilities.
