Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major issue globally, with figures from the World Health Organization showing that 30% of women have experienced violence perpetuated by an intimate partner.
Although IPV also exists in developed nations, it is particularly prevalent in developing countries, where low economic, social and political empowerment of women typically makes them more vulnerable to physical violence at the hands of their partners.
In India, figures from the National Crime Records Bureau of India show that a domestic violence incident is reported every five minutes, with IPV being equally common in rural and urban areas. Research shows that 41% of women have experienced domestic violence in their lifetime, of which 30% have experienced incidents in the past year. Major reasons for IPV prevalence in India include, but are not limited to, dowry disputes, cultural norms, patriarchal society, accusations of extramarital affairs, and not being able to bear a son.
A study from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, The link between mothers’ vulnerability to intimate partner violence and Children’s human capital, has found that IPV in India negatively affects young children’s cognitive development and educational attainment, something that in turn may have a detrimental impact on the country’s future economic growth.
“The study shows that domestic violence is not only bad for a woman’s health, but it also has very serious consequences for a child’s education,” says Assistant Professor Sonia Akter, one of the study’s authors. She adds that IPV impacts human capital accumulation, something that is important for economic growth in a developing country like India. “The government should take it very seriously, and should try to curb the incidents of domestic violence, because it’s likely to affect the nation’s future economic development,” she explains.
A ‘novel’ approach
The study relied on data collected by researchers from the University of Maryland, USA, and the New Delhi-based think tank National Council of Applied Economic Research, and consists of two waves.
Wave 1 was conducted in 2004 and 2005, where 41,554 households from all states and union territories of India were interviewed, with the exception of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep. Wave 2 interviews took place in 2011 and 2012, where about 85% of Wave 1 households were re-interviewed. New households were added in Wave 2 to replace those that had dropped out.
The study aimed to fill several gaps in understanding the correlation between IPV and a child’s human capital. Previously, studies in this field of research predominately used school-based measures of educational attainment as indicators of human capital, but rarely took into account cognitive abilities as well.
As a result, this research used the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) Wave 1 and 2, a nationally-representative dataset containing four measures of human capital for children between the ages of eight and 11. Two of these measures are traditional school-based indicators, and two are standardised reading, and arithmetic test scores that reflect a child’s cognitive ability.
“Looking only at institution-based outcomes would exclude children who are home-schooled, or who went to school but dropped out,” said Dr Akter.
The study also applied a novel method of using indirect, rather than direct, questioning to measure the rate of IPV in local communities.
“A challenge with domestic violence research is under reporting. It tends to be a very personal experience, and often women don’t want to talk about their experiences,” said Dr Akter.
Instead of asking about a woman’s personal experience, the study relied on indirect questions, for example whether it was common in their communities for women to face domestic violence as a result of certain activities.
“As they weren’t direct questions, the responses received were likely to be more accurate,” she said.
IPV’s effect on children
The findings of the study indicate a “significant negative correlation” between a mother’s vulnerability to IPV and children’s human capital, in both educational attainment and test scores. It found three ways through which this emerges:
- IPV affects the psychological and physical health of the mother, who is typically the primary caregiver and responsible for supervising learning activities at home;
- it disrupts the family functioning and home environment, forcing children to live under a state of constant fear and insecurity; and
- invokes externalising behaviour among children, such as aggression, which may interfere with learning efforts at school and home.
Dr Akter said that the research didn’t study how exposure to IPV can impact a child’s long-term future, but argued that because early childhood is the foundation of a child’s learning, it appears “more likely” that there will be a “long lasting, more durable impact on children’s success, or overall education, in the long run”.
The results also had a gender component, finding that the negative impacts were more pronounced for girls compared to boys.
“We thought this might be possible because girls are more attached to their mother, and spend more time at home,” Dr Akter said. “Whereas boys are playing outside, and not at home so much. So maybe [girls] witness it more, and there is also gender bias in education in India.”
Changing attitudes
Dr Akter said that there had been some progress in India in recent years, in terms of how domestic violence is viewed by the government, but that more needs to be done to change attitudes.
“Previously, the government has had the stance that [domestic violence] is a private matter. If something has been initiated by an intimate partner, the state should not get involved,” she said.
However, women now have some legal recourse in taking action against a violent partner through the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, which was enacted in 2005. But simply outlawing domestic violence does not prevent incidents from happening, and issues with relying on legal outcomes include a highly patriarchal judicial system, and the fact that taking legal action is expensive, time consuming, and an unfamiliarity with the legal system for women who want to take action.
“The woman is also not financially independent. She is still dependent on the husband… [and] so, there are several weapons that the husband has at his disposal to stop women from taking action. So, the women [are] essentially powerless,” Dr Akter said.
Instead, she argued what needs to happen is measures taken to improve women’s education about their legal rights, as well as enhancing the independence and income capacity of women.
“If women are educated, then they choose their husbands more carefully, they are more aware of their rights, and they have more negotiating power,” she said.