Perpetration and Justification of Partner Violence By Men Married to Microfinance Participants: Results from a National Sample of Men in Bangladesh

Purpose  Violence against women, particularly partner violence, is an insidious social problem in Bangladesh, the accepance of which allows its normalization and continuation. Amidst such grave conditions for women, women’s groups and non-government organizations (NGOs) emerged to generate awareness about women’s rights and provide services to women experiencing partner violence. One important intervention, the focus of the present study, is microfinance, an anti-poverty tool intended to empower women living in poverty. Microfinance is a small loan provided to low-income women who are expected to create microbusinesses of their own. 

The objective of the present study is to assess whether men married to microfinance participants were 1) more likely to perpetrate IPV and 2) more likely to justify the use of IPV under certain circumstances, e.g. if the wife neglects child care, amidst conflicting evidence for the empowering effects of microfinance participation on women 

Methods  The present study is a secondary analysis of the Couples Survey from the 2007 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey focusing on a sub-sample of 3,231 men. Because the male respondents in the sample were from the same household as the women, each male respondent can be matched with their female spouses. A stratified, two-stage sampling strategy was utilized to arrive at a sample of 361 primary sampling units derived from the 2001 Bangladesh census. For more details on the national dataset, please refer to the BDHS Bangladesh Report (NIPORT, 2009). 

Results  The descriptive statistics based on population estimates indicate that approximately 15% (n=487) of the study population of men perpetrated violence against their wives, while 32% (n=1,026) justified partner violence.

The logistic regression model of partner violence perpetration revealed a significant overall F (12, 171) = 10.3, p<.001. Beta coefficients of the independent variables revealed that men married to microfinance participants were not significantly different from men married to non-participants of microfinance in terms of partner violence perpetration in both urban and rural areas. 

The logistic regression modeling justification of partner violence also revealed a significant F (12,171) = 10.2, p<.001. Microfinance participation was found to be significantly associated with justification of partner violence in urban areas (β= .51, p<.001) but not in rural area ((β= -.05, p>.05). Additionally, justification of partner violence was significantly negative associated with presence of wealth assets (β= -.41, p<.001), more than 45 years of age (β= -.38, p<.001), secondary education (β= -.40, p<.001) and higher education (β= -.99, p<.001).

Implications That men in urban areas are more inclined to justify partner violence, even when they themselves do not perpetrate partner violence, reflects the global attitude towards women in patriarchal societies that favor victim blaming notions of partner violence rather than unequivocally condemning all violence against women. This speaks to the need for interventions – both on the policy level and practice level – to address this attitude that condones and maintains violence against women.