1. PLANTEAMIENTO DEL PROBLEMA
3.5. CUESTIONES JURÍDICAS DERIVADAS DEL RECONOCIMIENTO DEL
In cross-sectional studies, the effect of economic variables—including employment and access to independent income—is inconsistent with respect to women’s risk of partner violence.
A systematic review of 22 studies conducted in low- and middle-income countries between 1992 and 2005 found that women’s access to cash employment was protective against violence in some studies and settings but increased women’s risk of violence in others [211]. Research in rural and urban settings in India and Bangladesh, for example, has generally found
that women’s participation in employment, both before and after marriage, is associated with greater reporting of domestic violence [76, 212-215]. By contrast, a study in the southern state of Kerala found that women who had regular wage employment were less likely to be beaten than unemployed women [216].
A recent study of a national sample of over 30,000 women in Mexico suggests that the negative impact of employment on women’s risk of violence may be an artefact of male control. Controlling men are more likely to actively prevent their partners from working as well as to harm them physically. In epidemiological terms, male control is said to confound the relationship between employment and partner violence. When researchers used statistical techniques that take into account the extent to which unmeasured and unobserved characteristics of the woman’s partner simultaneously affect their likelihood of being employed and their risk of partner violence, they found that employed women had a lower risk of partner violence—the opposite of what was suggested by the simpler model [217]. Few prospective or impact studies are available (in either high-income or developing countries) to
help clarify how changing economic circumstances affects the risk of partner violence.
The only prospective study available from the developing world on the impact of female and male employment status on partner violence is from a slum community in Bangalore. This study found that women who were unemployed at the outset and became employed during
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the study period faced 80% higher odds of violence than women whose employment status remained unchanged [218].
Equally important to women’s risk of violence in the Bangalore study was their husband’s employment stability. Women whose husbands were gainfully employed at the beginning of the study and then lost their job or faced job-related difficulties were 1.7 times more likely to be physically abused during the study than women whose husbands’ employment status remained stable [218].
A recent controlled trial in rural Ethiopia demonstrated that women’s risk of physical partner violence increased 13 percent and their risk of emotional partner violence increased 34 percent, after women became employed in the export flower industry (rates of partner violence were measured 5 to 7 months after employment started). Five flower farms that received far more applicants than they could accommodate agreed to randomly assign qualified applicants to either receive a job offer or not. In further analysis, the authors found limited support for theories that posit that violence is used as a tool to gain control over household resources. Rather, they conclude: “It appears emotionally costly to men when household roles deviate from those prescribed by gender norms, and that violence is seen as a way to restore a traditional order [303].”
The effect of economic variables on women’s risk of violence may depend in part on the relative economic position of her partner as well as cultural expectations regarding male and female gender roles.
A study from Canada found that the effect of employment on women’s risk of violence is conditioned by the employment status of her partner. A woman’s participation in the labour force lowers the risks of domestic violence when her male partner is also employed but substantially increases the risks of violence when he is not employed [205].
In the WHO multi-country study, women who worked for cash when their partners did not were at increased risk of violence in 6 of 14 settings. Couples in which only the man worked appeared to be at slightly lower risk of partner violence than couples in which both partners worked in 8 of 14 sites (the finding reached statistical significance, however, in only 2 sites probably due to small sample size) [42].
A study of partner violence in the United States found that when husbands held traditional gender ideologies, women who earned more than their partners were at increased risk of violence, whereas relative earnings had no effect on the likelihood of violence within couples where the man had more egalitarian gender expectations [219]. The authors suggest that when men accept an ideology that defines masculinity in terms of being the breadwinner, and their wives earn a significant portion of household income, violence might be used to
compensate for the symbolic loss of male authority [219].
Qualitative studies from a range of developing countries likewise suggest that when
circumstances do not provide men with the expected opportunity to validate their masculine identity, violence may serve as an alternative way of doing so [206, 214, 220].
Higher women’s contribution to the household was associated with significantly higher past- year physical violence in one study in Bangladesh [221], but no significant association was found in two other Bangladeshi sites [222, 223] or with having ever experienced physical violence in the Philippines [224].
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