Who’s your Neighbour? Social Influences on Domestic Violence

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Journal of Development Studies

Publication Date

1-1-2021

Abstract

We examine the impact of neighbourhood physical domestic violence on the likelihood of being exposed to physical abuse within a household using nationally representative data from the fourth wave of the National Family Health Survey of India. To address potential endogeneity issues in analysing neighbourhood influences, we utilise an instrumental variables approach that compares households in the same state but different neighbourhoods. Using exogenous variation in neighbouring women’s exposure to parental violence in her natal family as an instrument for average neighbourhood domestic violence, we find that a 1 standard deviation increase in neighbourhood domestic violence leads to a 0.2 standard deviation increase in the probability of domestic violence within a household. We establish that domestic violence is not only driven by intra-household factors but also observable changes at a neighbourhood level.

ISSN

0022-0388

Publisher

Informa UK Limited

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Keywords

domestic violence, India, instrumental variable, Neighbourhood, networks, social effects

Scopus ID

85115670218

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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