The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #69399

Lisa M Bates, SM, Department of Health and Social Behavior, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, 617-522-8893, lbates@hsph.harvard.edu, Sidney Schuler, PhD, Center for Applied Behavioral and Evaluation Research, Empowerment of Women Research Program, Academy for Educational Development, 1825 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20009, and Farzana Islam, PhD, Anthropology Department, Jahangirnagar University, 1-3A Lalmatia, Block C, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Although the pervasiveness of violence against women in Bangladesh is well-documented, specific risk factors for gender-based violence, particularly those that can be linked to actionable policies and programs, are poorly understood.

This paper presents findings from a two-year study combining qualitative interviews (N=76) and survey data (N=1403) from six rural villages in Bangladesh to explore a) the social determinants of gender-based inequality and violence and b) the pathways through which social and economic factors influence women’s vulnerability in marriage.

Using multivariate regression analyses we focus on 5 social and economic factors that have emerged from our qualitative research as potential determinants of women’s vulnerability to violence: a) women’s education; b) age at marriage; c) dowry; d) marriage registration; and e) women’s economic status. We also test to what extent and how the associations between these factors and domestic violence may be mediated by women’s empowerment.

Our preliminary findings suggest that these factors may operate in complicated ways. Factors that improve women’s economic and social security (such as income and marriage registration) may strengthen women’s assertiveness and ability to resist violence, and/or undermine husbands’ authority and increase the use of violence as a means of asserting control. To better understand the complexity of these relationships we look at associations among these factors, stratify analyses to determine if their effects are differential by age, and supplement the quantitative findings with qualitative data on decisionmaking processes around marriage formation and women’s own perceptions of risk factors for violence.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. Identify key social determinants of gender-based violence in rural Bangladesh.
• 2. Describe the pathways through which these social and economic factors operate to affect gender-based violence.
• 3. Link the social determinants to actionable policies and programs that may be employed to reduce gender-based violence.

Keywords: Violence, Gender

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Disclosure not received
Relationship: Not Received.