Globally, one in three women experience intimate partner violence (IPV) over their lifetimes. Yet, the factors that cause men to commit IPV remain poorly understood.
In a newly published open access paper in the Journal of Development Economics, Wolfgang Stojetz and Tilman Brück propose a causal long-term link from past exposure to gender-based collective violence to violent behavior against an intimate partner many years later.
Using novel survey data from Angola in combination with a natural experiment, Wolfgang and Tilman test this hypothesis.
They find that exposure to sexual violence by armed groups against women makes male veterans about 30 percentage points more likely to commit physical – but not sexual – violence against a female intimate partner 18 years later (on average).
These findings are not consistent with standard explanations of IPV based on group norms and intra-household bargaining. They challenge standard approaches to preventing IPV and highlight the potential of working with men after episodes of collective violence.
‘Exposure to collective gender-based violence causes intimate partner violence‘ is available open access now!
