VIOLENCE AGAINST

WOMEN ECONOMIC COSTS

AND CONSEQUENCES

NATA DUVVURY
NUI, GALWAY
JUNE 23, 2106
IAFFE PRE CONFERENCE
OVERVIEW

1. Feminist Economics and VAW (IPV)

2. Highlight dimensions of VAW including
forms and prevalence of IPV
3. Discuss consequences of violence
4. Conceptual frame mapping links between
violence and growth
5. Review of cost estimates of violence
6. Illustrative empirical strategy
FEMINIST
ECONOMICS
• Feminist economics is concerned with understanding
gender power imbalances and how these affect economy
and society
• Concerned to understand the role of patriarchy in
capitalist accumulation
• So considerable focus on issues of gender division of
labour, interaction of paid and unpaid work and social
reproduction, gender wage gap, etc.
• Violence which is a fundamental expression of gender
power is however not adequately integrated into the
analysis of accumulation or long term dynamics
ECONOMY AND
VIOLENCE INTERACTION
• Much of the analysis of feminist eocnomists on violence
is focused on exploring the dynamics of violence in a
inter-household bargaining model – big problem is that
violence is ‘choice’
• Others have focused on understanding to the extent to
which economic empowerment of individual women or
economic growth at community/state level contributes to
decrease in violence
• However little attention to violence results in ‘costs’ in the
short term and potentially more significant impact on
growth itself in the long run
In this talk i will focus on understanding the costs of violence
and potential long-term impacts
MEASUREMENT OF
VIOLENCE - DEFINITIONS
• Fundamental human rights violation of epidemic
proportions
• Violence against women encompasses multiple forms –
domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape, femicide,
dowry deaths, FGM, sex selective abortion, child
marriage, etc.
• Universally prevalent form is intimate partner violence
across both global north and south
• Intimate partner violence is defined as physical, sexual or
psychological acts perpetrated by an intimate partner
causing physical or mental harm including deprivation of
liberty
LIFETIME PREVALENCE OF PHYSICAL AND /OR
SEXUAL VIOLENCE INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE
AMONG EVER-PARTNERED WOMEN
CONSEQUENCES OF IPV –
HEALTH IMPACTS
• Pre mature mortality - 38 percent of
all women murdered over 65
countries were murdered by an
intimate partner (WHO, 2013)
• Non-fatal injuries - 41percent of
women experiencing violence
report injuries, often leading
disability, chronic pain and
morbidity (WHO, 2013)
• Poor mental health – PTSD,
depression, substance abuse are
increased risks for women
experiencing IPV (Garcia- Moreno,
et. al, 2008)
• Poor reproductive and sexual
health outcomes including
maternal mortality, increased risk
of HIV, gynecological disorders
(Bacchus, 2004, Campbell, et. al,
2008)
CONSEQUENCES OF IPV-
ECONOMIC IMPACTS
• Impact on labor force participation
• Women working at home increased experience of violence Bhattacharya,
2009)
• Women experiencing violence more likely to be employed by 10% (Farmer
and Tiefenthaler, 2004; Aguero, 2012)
• Longitudinal study of sexual violence survivors suggests decreased labor
force participation (Sabia, et al, 2013)
• Impact on work
• Absenteeism – missing work after incident of violence – Vietnam women
missed on average 5.5 days per incident.(Duvvury et al, 2012)
• Presenteeism – tardiiness, leaving early, less concentration (Reeves and
OLeary-Kelly, 2007, Swanberg, et al, 2006)
• Impact on employment stability
• Episodes of violence impact employment stability upto six years (Crowne, et
al, 2011)
• Depression is key mediating variable
• Impact on earnings
• Decreased productivity reflected in lower earnings –Vietnam women
experiencing violence had 35% lower wages (Duvvury, et al, 2012)
• A longitudinal study of survivors of sexual violence found 5.1% decrease in
wages (Sabia, et.al, 2013)

IPV affects a survivor’s ability to be engaged at work, maintain employment

stability and achieve occupation attainment.
CONSEQUENCES OF IPV:
INTER-GENERATIONAL
IMPACTS
• Consequences for children’s health – low birth
weight, malnutrition, poor health
• Studies in Latin America, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe found
increase risk of acute respiratory tract infections and diarrhea,
higher anemia, malnutrition, lesser likelihood of vaccination
(Aguero, 2012, Morrison and Orlando, 2004)
• Impacts on children’s behavior
• Among children exposed to violence increased truancy, criminal
behavior, depression, increased risk of substance abuse, and
increased likelihood of perpetration or experience of violence in
adulthood (Wright, et. al, 2012)
• Impacts on education
• Poor school performance, likelihood of missing years of school,
poor cognitive ability (Bosquet, et. al, 2012, Lozano, 1999)

Overall, human capital formation of next generation is

undermined
INTRA-HOUSEHOLD
GENDER RELATIONS
Violence impacts intra-
household gender relations
• Loss of power and decision
making (Bobonis, et. al(2009)

• Intra-household allocation in
terms of preferred food and
personal consumption reduced
(Bhattacharya, 2009)
CONCEPTUAL DIAGRAM OF IPV LINKS TO
ECONOMIC GROWTH
ESTIMATING COSTS
• The numerous consequences raises the question whether
these can be monetized
• Costing frameworks focus on differentiating
short run vs long run costs
direct vs indirect costs
tangible vs intangible
monetary vs non monetary costs
• Costs occur at different levels
individual/household
community/businesses
state/national economy
TYPES OF COSTS
Direct tangible/monetary costs
• Expenditures to prevent violence, treat victims, and
apprehend and prosecute perpetrators
Indirect tangible/ monetary costs (loss of opportunity/profit)
• Costs of increased absenteeism; decreased labor market
participation; reduced productivity; lower earnings, investment
and savings; and lower intergenerational productivity
Direct intangible/non-monetary costs
• Increased suffering, illness, and death; abuse of drugs and
alcohol; and depression
Indirect intangible/non-monetary costs
• Inter-generational impacts on children such as psychological
and cognitive impacts
METHODOLOGIES FOR
COST ESTIMATION
• Accounting methodology - out of pocket costs for
accessing services, foregone income through
absenteeism, missed school, cost of service provision
• Econometric methodology – measures indirect costs in
terms of reduced income due to pre-mature mortality, lost
productivity and lost time in the labor market
• Propensity Score Matching – impacts on labor force
participation, health outcomes, etc.
• Willingness to pay/accept methodology – loss of quality of
life, pain and suffering
• DALYs – disability adjusted life years captures loss of
quality of life, pain and suffering
SUMMARY OF COST
ESTIMATES
COST ESTIMATES CONT’D
COST ESTIMATES –
CONT’D
LINKS TO GROWTH?
• Cost estimates are static - monetary loss at one time point
• In the conceptual framework we highlighted different pathways
that impact on growth/development
• However non availability of data limits which pathways can be
explored
• One strategy is to look at sectoral level
• Using data from Vietnam study, estimated output loss by sectors
• Identified key sectors which accounted majority of women’s
employment – 92% of employment and 60% of total output in 2011
• Used figures on average number of incidents and days missed per
incident to calculate total missed days
• Using output/worker/day in each sector calculated total output loss
in individual sectors
OUTPUT LOSS IN 2012
CROSS-COUNTRY
COMPARISON

For example in Uganda the loss due to violence is equivalent to 31% of what is
spent on all education.
If only consider spend on primary education, the output loss due to IPV related
absenteeism is between 25 per cent for Viet Nam to slightly more than 50 per
cent for Bangladesh and Uganda.
Intriguing that the loss is roughly equivalent across different economic levels
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
• There is a deep and complex interrelationship between
violence against women and economic growth with important
implications for development
• An important question to explore is whether, as economic
development unfolds, with implications for trends in female
labor force participation and structural shifts in the economy,
does the significance of the output loss decline?
• An even more important question is whether economic
growth/development exacerbate IPV? Does it depend on the
type and pattern of economic development?
For more information and full bibiliography see the following
two documents:

Duvvury, N., Minh, N. and Carney, P. 2012. Economic Costs of

Domestic Violence Against Women in Vietnam. UN Women:
Hanoi available at
http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2013/
2/estimating-the-cost-of-domestic-violence-against-women-i
n-viet-nam
Duvvury, N., Callan, A., Carney, T. and Raghavendra, S. 2013
Intimate Partner Violence: Economic Costs and Implications
for Growth and Development. Women’s Voice, Agency and
Participation Research Series No. 3, World Bank available at
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/11/18486239
/intimate-partner-violence-economic-costs-implications-grow
th-development
Thank you!