Alcohol-induced physical intimate partner violence and child development in Peru

ABSTRACT

There is limited evidence of the relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) and child development in developing countries. Alcohol-induced physical IPV (AIPIPV) is one of the main forms of IPV. We use longitudinal data from a cohort of Peruvian children, tracked from the age of 1 year old, to test the association between AIPIPV against the mother during the child’s first two years of life, and the child’s test scores (vocabulary and math), socio-emotional competencies (self-efficacy and self-esteem, as measured by agency and pride indexes), and delayed school enrolment. Using multivariate regression techniques to estimate the relationship of interest and control for child, household, and community characteristics, we find that early-life exposure to AIPIPV is associated with lower test scores in vocabulary and math, and with lower self-efficacy. No association with self-esteem and with delayed school enrolment is observed.

KEYWORDS:

• Child development
• domestic violence
• alcohol
• intimate partner violence
• early childhood
• test scores
• delayed school
• socio-emotional competencies

Acknowledgments

Data from the Young Lives study is used. The Young Lives study is mainly funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). We are very grateful to Alessandra Hidalgo for excellent research assistance. We thank participants at the PAA 2016 Annual Meeting, a GRADE research seminar, two anonymous referees and the editor for providing detailed comments on an earlier version of this paper. A working paper version previously circulated under the title “The impact of intimate partner violence on child development in Peru” (Bedoya et al., 2018).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Frias-Armenta and Gaxiola-Romero (2008) is, to our knowledge, the only study that has explored the relationship between direct and indirect domestic violence and children’s socio-emotional development in a developing country. Specifically, the authors explore the relationship between family violence and antisocial behavior in a sample of 150 children in Mexico.

2. Nurturing care, key for child development, is characterized by a home environment that is ‘sensitive to children’s health and nutritional needs, responsive, emotionally supportive, and developmentally stimulating and appropriate, with opportunities for play and exploration and protection from adversities’ (Black et al., 2017, p. 3).

3. English et al. (2003), Levendosky et al. (2003), and Levendosky and Graham-Bermann (2001) present evidence from US samples, whereas Holt et al. (2008) is a comprehensive literature review.

4. Evidence is mainly from the US. Campbell (2002) explicitly seeks for evidence outside the US, including developing countries (Nicaragua and Pakistan); Yount et al. (2011) reports findings from studies in Bangladesh, Kenya, India, and Pakistan.

5. See Evans et al. (2008) for a recent meta-analysis which includes 60 studies, and Fowler and Chanmugam (2007) for a critical review of older meta/mega-analyses.

6. Evans et al. (2008) found a moderate effect on externalizing and internalizing symptoms, whereas Fowler and Chanmugam (2007) found small to medium effects on both internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. See also Davies (2005), Sternberg et al. (2006), and Wolfe et al. (2003). These reviews focus on evidence mainly from the US.

7. Kitzmann et al. (2003) found a small (negative) effect on other psychosocial outcomes – including self-esteem – as well as a small to medium (negative) effect on academic achievement.

8. Evans et al. (2008) and Davies (2005) found a stronger negative effect on externalizing behavior for boys.

9. We were only able to identify two studies, one from Mexico (Frias-Armenta & Gaxiola-Romero, 2008) and another one from Tanzania (Neamah et al., 2018).

10. The agency scale considers the following items: ‘If try hard, I can improve my situation in life,’ ‘I like to make plans for my future studies and work,’ ‘If I study hard at school, I will be rewarded by a better job in the future.’ The pride scale includes the following statements: ‘I am proud of my clothes,’ ‘I am proud of my shoes or of having shoes,’ ‘I am never embarrassed because I do not have the right books, pencils, or other equipment,’ ‘I am proud that I have the correct uniform.’

11. As a robustness check, we re-estimated the preferred specification excluding from the sample those families where the husband does not get drunk. The caveat is that the sample reduces from 1,467 to 863, which reduces statistical power. Point estimates remain largely the same. The coefficient associated to agency becomes marginally insignificant for the full sample but remains statistically significant for girls (results available upon request).

12. We estimated three additional model specifications in order to control for the following: (i) drivers of IPV (partner’s alcohol consumption and employment status of the mother); (ii) changes over time in family structure and household socio-economic status that might be the result of AIPIPV if the caregiver no longer lives with her partner; and (iii) mother’s depression and/or anxiety, captured by the SRQ-20 test. Point estimates are very similar across these models compared to our preferred specification. These results are available upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by UNICEF, and by the Old Dart Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Mariel Bedoya

Mariel Bedoya was a research assistant at GRADE. She holds an MSc. in Economics from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics.

Karen Espinoza

Karen Espinoza was a research assistant at GRADE. She holds an MSc. in Economics from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics.

Alan Sánchez

Alan Sánchez is a Senior Researcher at GRADE and Principal Investigator of the Young Lives Study in Peru. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Oxford.