Intimate partner violence: understanding employment stability through latent class analysis

ABSTRACT

Women’s experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV) adversely impact their careers. This study determines how employment factors (e.g. hours, scheduling, and support levels) differ in a sample of mothers and how those differences influence abuse.. This cross-sectional study uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCW). We chose the fourth wave because the data enables an understanding of the employment conditions of IPV survivors who are mothers of young children (N = 1,845). Latent class analysis using mixture modeling estimated subtypes of employment stability, and whether IPV predicted employment class membership was completed. Results showed that a three-class solution was the best fit for the data. IPV experiences predicted a higher risk of being in the ‘Full-Time and Unsupported’ over both the ‘Stable and Supported’ (OR = 1.44, 95% CI 1.25-1.65) and the ‘Part-Time’ class (OR = 1.32, 95% CI = 1.05-1.1.65). Results indicate that IPV significantly impacts the employment classes that mothers fall into. This finding builds on previous literature to say that IPV not only predicts working in lower-income positions and having fewer work hours but also having an unsupportive workplace culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Intimate partner violence
• employment
• profession
• workplace support
• violence against women

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathryn Showalter

Kathryn Showalter, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the College of Social Work at the University of Kentucky. Her work focuses on intimate partner violence (IPV) and employment. Specifically, she is interested in understanding the ways that abusive partners’ utilize workplace disruptions to sabotage their partners’ career and how workplaces support women through policy and procedure. She is a former BIRCWH (Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health) Scholar and has received pilot funds from the University of Kentucky Center for Translational Science.

Mi Sun Choi

Mi Sun Choi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Welfare at Silla University in Korea. She is an affiliate of the Age-Friendly Innovation Center, launched by the College of Social Work at The Ohio State University. Her research focuses on the aging workforce and intergenerational relations in the workplace, with a particular interest in maximizing the well-being and engagement of older adults through effective management practices in organizations and communities. Dr. Choi's research approach encompasses a combination of mixed methods and community-based approaches. She actively contributes to community-based projects, including collaborations with age-friendly communities in Columbus and Franklin County, U.S., as well as community care initiatives in Korea.

Katherine Marçal

Katherine Marçal is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and a member of the Child Well-Being Research Network. She received her bachelors, masters, and doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Marçal’s areas of expertise include housing insecurity and homelessness among families with children, maternal and child mental health, and community-based system dynamics. Dr. Marçal’s research has been funded by local, state, and federal agencies including the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the National Institutes for Health (NIH), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Her work has been published in prominent scholarly journals across disciplines including Annual Review of Public Health, American Journal of Community Psychology, Child Abuse & Neglect, and Journal of Interpersonal Violence among others. Dr. Marçal actively collaborates with community agencies and policymakers toward ending homelessness, increasing affordable housing, and meeting needs of vulnerable families with children. Rujeko ‘Rue’ Machinga-Asaolu (Msc, MSSW, MSCFT, CSW-KY) is a third-year Ph.D. in Social Work student at the University of Kentucky. Her primary scholarly research explores the post-traumatic growth among intimate partner violence survivors. Her secondary scholarly research is looking at the intersection of being an IPV survivor as an older adult, an immigrant, or a nurse. Currently, she is a predissertation fellow with the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work (AGESW), a predoctoral fellow with the United in True Racial Equity at the UKY, and a recipient of the Lyman T. Johnson Fellowship.