The Impact of the 2010 Earthquake on Intimate Partner Sexual Violence in Haiti

• In Event: 281 - Regular Session. Disaster 2

Abstract

Previous research suggests that violence against women increases after disastrous events, but data limitations have prevented scholars from rigorously examining this phenomenon. In this study, we use two waves of geocoded Demographic and Health Survey data and a difference-in-difference strategy to provide causal estimates of the effect of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti on intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV). We further explore heterogeneity in the earthquake’s effects across various demographic characteristics, including age, education, and parity. Our findings indicate a large increase in the probability of IPSV in regions that were devastated by the disaster; these findings are robust to different model specifications and measurements of earthquake intensity. We also find that the earthquake’s effects were most pronounced among women under the age of 25 or over the age of 40, and women with four or more children. Additional, descriptive analyses suggest that post-earthquake intimate partner sexual violence positively correlated with experiences such as displacement, property damage, and the loss of household members. These findings portray a substantial but unequally distributed effect of disasters on forcible sex within relationships in the case of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Authors

• Abigail Weitzman, New York University

• Julia Andrea Behrman, New York University