Impact of domestic violence legislation on reported intimate partner violence: a difference-in-differences analysis across 16 countries

Abstract

Background

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a highly prevalent threat to women's health globally. Domestic violence (DV) legislation – encompassing criminal sanctions and civil remedies – has been implemented in many countries but evidence on its effects are lacking. In this study, we evaluate the impact of national-level DV legislation on married women's IPV victimization.

Methods

We used self-reported IPV information from 183,222 women across 16 countries, collected in repeated cross-sectional surveys (2000–2021) by the Demographic and Health Surveys, which we linked to DV legislation information from the World Bank. We evaluated impact with a staggered difference-in-differences approach and controlled for time-varying country-level factors.

Results

Adoption of DV legislation resulted in an increase in any reported IPV (average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) = 0.07, 95 % CI: 0.00, 0.14). All investigated types of IPV increased slightly, including physical (ATT = 0.05, 95 % CI: −0.05, 0.15), sexual (ATT = 0.04, 95 % CI: −0.03, 0.10), and psychological IPV (ATT = 0.02, 95 % CI: −0.04, 0.08), although estimates were imprecise and included the null. Further assessment shows that reported IPV increased more soon after adoption of legislation, and that women with accepting attitudes about IPV experienced the greatest increase in IPV. We did not observe effect heterogeneity by other factors including age, education level, or number of children.

Conclusions

Adoption of DV legislation may increase women's reported IPV victimization. Future research could explore effect heterogeneity across multiple socio-demographic subgroups and the potential mechanisms through which such policies may benefit women's health.