Female autonomy and intimate partner violence: findings from the Zimbabwe demographic and health survey, 2015

Abstract

Intimate partner violence is a persistent social problem in Zimbabwe and has been linked to patriarchal attitudes that promote the superiority of men in marital relationships while denying women agency. Using 2015 Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey data, we examined the influence of female autonomy on intimate partner violence. Our analysis was restricted to 2847 women who were in some form of sexual union. Consistent with earlier studies, our results show that more than 40% of the women had experienced some form of intimate partner violence. The most prevalent form of intimate partner violence was emotional violence, followed by physical violence and sexual violence. Low levels of economic autonomy and supportive attitudes towards wife-beating increased the risk of intimate partner violence, while late marriage reduced the risk of all forms of intimate partner violence. Findings provide a basis for interventions that may increase economic control and improve decision making for women, although the association between economic violence and economic decision making requires further research that examines the possibility of reverse causality.

Keywords:

• Decision-making
• female autonomy
• IPV
• Zimbabwe

Disclosure statement

There are no potential conflicts of interest to report.

Data availability

The data used in this study is available online from the Demographic and Health Survey website at https://dhsprogram.com

Notes

1 In other words, 55.4% of the women in the sample had not experienced any form of IPV. The proportions for emotional, physical and sexual violence should be read in a similar manner.

2 Overall autonomy was estimated separately from economic, personal health and freedom of movement decision making. Only the adjusted odds ratios (AOR) for the overall autonomy index are presented (i.e we do not present the results for the controls in these models, which are available on request).