Intimate Partner Abuse and Human Development: A Matched-Pairs Comparison of Six Countries

• In Event: Roundtable: Sexual Violence

Abstract

In this paper, I use multi-level fixed-effects logistic regression to examine the contextual effects of education and its relationship to the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) on risk of intimate partner abuse (IPA) in six countries as three sets of matched pairs: Bangladesh and Nepal, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and Ukraine and Moldova. Each pair shares geographic and historical similarities and although each country has an additional pair for level of human development (Haiti and Nepal, Moldova and Bangladesh, Ukraine and the Dominican Republic), none of them rank as “very highly developed.” I discuss the importance of cultural and regional similarities and HDI rankings and their differential associations with educational context as a predictor. I also test hypotheses that provide insight on: (1) the necessity for culturally specific intervention programs; (2) delineating distinctions or similarities between patriarchal “developing” countries related to Western ties, which would shape policy responses; and (3) support for an effect of diminishing returns regarding regional education, which would provide a clear goal for international education initiatives.

Author

• Jennifer A. Balliet, University of Colorado Boulder