Contested development? Women’s economic empowerment and intimate partner violence in urban and rural Tanzania
| Authors | Type | Stream | Full Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seema Vyas, Jessie Mbwambo, Charlotte Watts | Open call | Violence |  en |
Research aim
The overall aim of this research is to explore the relationship between different indicators of women’s economic empowerment and women’s risk of lifetime and current partner violence in two contrasting Tanzania settings.
Participants and sample strategy
The data used is drawn for the WHO multi-country study on women’s health and domestic violence.[1] The study in Tanzania was a cross-sectional household survey of women aged between 15-49 in two sites, Dar Es Salaam (DES) Tanzania’s largest city; and Mbeya, a rural district. Data were collected between November 2001 and March 2002. The sample size for this analysis was 1965 currently married women or women living with a partner but who were not married.
Methodology
Women were asked questions about their experience of physical and / or sexual violence by a male intimate partner. Violence was measured by means of a modified version of the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS)[2] listing six acts of physical violence (slap; push; hit; kick; choke; threatened with weapon) and three acts of sexual violence (forced sex; had sex when did not want to because afraid of what he might do; forced to do something sexual that was degrading or humiliating). Women were asked whether they had ever experienced each of these acts (lifetime experience), and if so, whether they had experienced them within the 12-months to interview (current experience). The questionnaire also gathered information on factors related to household socio-economic characteristics e.g. ownership of durable assets, and women’s and their partners economic empowerment including their education attainment; employment status and type; and women’s financial autonomy.
The analysis draws on the theoretical literature that present competing predictions about the link between economic empowerment and partner violence: marital dependency theory; resource theory; relative resource theory; and the ecological framework. Bivariate and multivariate regression methods were used to assess the associations between different empowerment indicators, including education attainment, and women’s experience of partner violence.
Limitations
Due to the cross sectional nature of the survey it is difficult to establish the causal process i.e. does the stress of poverty cause violence in the household or does violence keep households poor. However, the findings do illustrate the extent to which different economic indicators are associated with violence.
Research findings
Table 1 shows the prevalence of lifetime and current partner violence among currently married women and women who are living with their partner and not married.
Table 1: Prevalence of lifetime and current year partner violence
| Total | Dar es Salaam | Mbeya | ||||
| N | (%) | N | (%) | N | (%) | |
| Lifetime physical and / or sexual violence | 868 | (44.2) | 346 | (35.1) | 522 | (53.4) |
| Current physical and / or sexual violence | 539 | (27.4) | 220 | (22.3) | 318 | (32.5) |
The bivariate results revealed evidence of a protective association between women’s education attainment, men’s education attainment and household socio-economic status and partner violence, but a risk association between women’s employment and partner violence. Prevalence of partner violence was also higher among women who had higher education than their partner, who were employed when there partner was not, and who contributed all or most to the household income. In the multivariate analysis, when controlling for other factors, the nature of the associations remained though were suggestive.
[1] The multi-country study was conducted in 15 sites from 10 countries. Dr. Mbwambo was the Tanzania PI and Professor Watts was one of the core research teams.
[2] The CTS was developed from the work by the work of Murray Straus and Richard Gelles for use in large surveys:
Straus, M.A. (1979) ‘Measuring Intrafamily Conflict and violence: The conflict tactics (CT) scales Journal of Marriage and the Family, 41:1. pp75-88. and Gelles, R.J. (1974)
Gelles, R.J. The violent home: A study of physical aggression between husbands and wives. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications
