When Protection Fails: Disasters and Violence Against Women

Rafat Mahmood and Pushkar Maitra

No 2026-06, Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Natural disasters are a growing global threat, yet their consequences for gender-based violence (GBV) in high-income countries with strong institutional protections remain largely unknown. We address this gap using administrative crime records linked to disaster declarations at the Local Government Area level in Australia. Applying staggered difference-in-differences estimation techniques, we find that disasters cause short-run increase family, domestic and sexual violence with effects concentrated in the first one to three months following a disaster. Strikingly, these effects are larger in urban and affluent areas, an outcome that is difficult to reconcile with a pure economic-stress mechanism, and is more consistent with institutional strain and differential reporting environments. To probe the underlying pathway, we draw on complementary household survey evidence, which points to mental health deterioration and increased intra-household conflict as individual-level mechanisms. Together, our findings suggest that even well-resourced institutional settings offer only incomplete protection against disaster-induced violence against women

Keywords: Natural Disasters; gender based Violence; Event Study; Australia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 J12 J16 K42 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05-01
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