1. Rainfall and intimate partner violence.
- Author
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Le, Kien and Nguyen, My
- Abstract
This paper explores the extent to which rainfall variability influences women’s exposure to intimate partner violence in 37 developing countries between 2000 and 2018. Exploiting the variation across residential areas in annual rainfall, we detect a negative association between rainfall deviations from typical levels and women’s experience of various aspects of intimate partner violence. Specifically, women tend to suffer less physical violence (in both less severe and more severe forms) and are less likely to experience domestic abuse in psychological as well as sexual manners when there is more rainfall in their residential area relative to the long-run local average rainfall. In contrast, we present evidence that the lack of rainfall (defined as rainfall below the historical norm) raises the likelihood of all four types of intimate partner violence. The mechanism analysis provides suggestive evidence that the linkage between rainfall and intimate partner violence could be mediated through household income. Our study highlights the sensitivity of women’s well-being to weather shocks and therefore underlines the importance of policy interventions that seek to secure household incomes and protect the welfare of women during adverse weather events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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