Health, Human Capital, and Domestic Violence

Abstract

We study the impact of a medical breakthrough (HAART) on domestic violence and illicit drug use among low-income women infected with HIV. To identify causal effects, we assume that variation in women's immune system health when HAART was introduced affected how strongly their experience of domestic violence or drug use responded to the breakthrough. Immune system health is objectively measured using white blood cell (CD4) counts. Because the women in our sample were informed of their CD4 count, it is reasonable to assume they react to it. Using this identification strategy, we find that HAART introduction reduced domestic violence and illicit drug use. To explain our estimates, we treat health as a form of human capital and argue that women with more human capital face stronger incentives to make costly investments with future payoffs, such as avoiding abusive partners or reducing illicit drug use.

Confinement and intimate partner violence†

“…Second, it links with the long‐standing research on the sources of violence against women, especially by intimate partners, that spans various disciplines. In economics, this line of research is related to how violence against women is affected by female economic dependence, wage gaps and job opportunities (e.g., Aizer, 2010; Basu & Famoye 2004; Bhalotra et al, 2020; Bobonis et al, 2013; Bowlus & Seitz, 2006; Farmer & Tiefenthaler, 1997; Munyo & Rossi, 2015), alcohol abuse (Angelucci, 2008), health (Papageorge et al, 2019), or structural poverty (Aizer, 2011). There is, in fact, part of this debate linking pandemics to intra‐family violence.…”

Does the Gender Wage Gap Influence Intimate Partner Violence in Brazil? Evidence from Administrative Health Data

“…The outcome data are taken from three administrative sources measuring violence at varying levels of severity. Previous studies on how women's economic status influences IPV typically use only one data source to measure IPV, though measures in relevant surveys, such as the Conflict Tactic Scale, do allow for the exploration of multiple levels of severity such as physical and psychological violence (Papageorge et al 2019;Heath 2014;Heath, Hidrobo, and Roy 2020;Hidrobo and Fernald 2013). It appears that only one other paper explores the various sources of data on violence: Amaral's study (2017) confirming that improved inheritance rights among women in India reduce self-reports of IPV in surveys, police reports of violence against women, and female mortality.…”

The Dynamics of Domestic Violence: Learning About the Match

“…Economics has recently seen a surge in research on domestic violence which has provided a wealth of useful insights. This research has focused on a range of environmental determinants of domestic abuse, including labour market conditions (Aizer, 2010;Tertilt and van den Berg, 2015;Anderberg et al, 2016;Tur-Prats, 2017), educational attainment (Erten and Keskin, 2018), culture and social norms (Alesina et al, 2020;Tur-Prats, 2019;González and Rodríguez-Planas, 2018;Guarnieri and Rainer, 2018), health and health innovations (Papageorge et al, 2019), gender ratios (Amaral and Bhalotra, 2017), and divorce laws (Stevenson and Wolfers, 2006;Garcia-Ramos, 2017). The literature has further focused on understanding motives for and triggers of abuse, including instant gratification (Tauchen et al, 1991), emotional cues (Card and Dahl, 2011), and instrumental abuse to change the victim's behaviour (Anderberg and Rainer, 2013) or to extract resources from the victim's family (Bloch and Rao, 2002).…”