Unemployment and Domestic Violence: Theory and Evidence

Dan Anderberg, Helmut Rainer, Jonathan Wadsworth and Tanya Wilson

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: Is unemployment the overwhelming determinant of domestic violence that many commentators expect it to be? The contribution of this paper is to examine, theoretically and empirically, how changes in unemployment affect the incidence of domestic abuse. The key theoretical prediction is that male and female unemployment have opposite-signed effects on domestic abuse: an increase in male unemployment decreases the incidence of intimate partner violence, while an increase in female unemployment increases domestic abuse. Combining data on intimate partner violence from the British Crime Survey with locally disaggregated labor market data from the UK's Annual Population Survey, we find strong evidence in support of the theoretical prediction.

Keywords: domestic violence; unemployment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D19 J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-eur
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1230.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Unemployment and Domestic Violence: Theory and Evidence (2016)
Working Paper: Unemployment and Domestic Violence: Theory and Evidence (2013)
Working Paper: Unemployment and domestic violence: theory and evidence (2013)
Working Paper: Unemployment and Domestic Violence: Theory and Evidence (2013)
Working Paper: Unemployment and Domestic Violence: Theory and Evidence (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1230

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