Empowerment brings more violence to women in India

Bangalore: Though having a job may enhance women’s empowerment and financial stability, a new study finds that young married women in India who work face an increased risk of domestic violence (being hit, kicked or beaten by their husband).

Suneeta Krishnan/ Photo credit: RTI International

The study was conducted by researchers at RTI International’s Women’s Global Health Imperative, University of California-Berkeley, Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, and International Center for Research on Women, and funded by a grant from the United States Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

The researchers also found that husbands who have difficulty maintaining a job are more likely to be physically violent to their wives.

The research, published by Social Science and Medicine online Oct. 14, examined the association between spousal employment status and physical domestic violence in Bangalore. Almost 750 married women between the ages of 16 and 25 were recruited from working class neighborhoods in 2005-2006 and interviewed three times during a two-year period.

“Our study highlights the complex challenges of women’s empowerment,” said Suneeta Krishnan, Ph.D., an epidemiologist in RTI’s Women’s Global Health Imperative. “While increasing women's access to meaningful and fair employment, we must recognise the potential social repercussions of these efforts. Our study is consistent with evidence that rapid changes in gender roles and relations can lead to backlash, including violence against women.”

The results showed that women who were unemployed at the time of one interview but began employment by the next interview a year later, had an 80% higher chance of experiencing domestic violence than did women who remained unemployed.

The research also found that women whose husbands had difficulty finding or keeping a job at the time of one of the interviews were more than twice as likely to experience domestic violence in the following year.

“A key social expectation of men once married is that they work and earn for their family, and failure to meet this expectation can lead to social disapproval,” Krishnan said.

“Social disapproval, a sense of inadequacy and frustration and related stressors associated with living in poverty may increase the likelihood of men perpetrating domestic violence.”

This study highlights the high rate of domestic violence in India. About 57% of women participating in the study reported having experienced domestic violence prior to joining the study. Additionally, 19% of women who had not experienced domestic violence prior to the study experienced it at some point during the two-year study.

The research results also showed that women in “love” marriages were almost twice as likely to experience domestic violence than those in more traditional arranged marriages, highlighting the adverse impact of flouting social norms.

“This study underscores the urgent need for programmes that address the impact of poverty and gender norms on men and programmes that explicitly focus on promoting unbiased gender attitudes and norms so that we can achieve a violence-free and gender-equitable future,” Krishnan said.