title: Women's status and domestic violence in rural Bangladesh: individual- and community-level effects.
abstract: We explore the determinants of domestic violence in two rural areas of Bangladesh. We found increased education, higher socioeconomic status, non-Muslim religion, and extended family residence to be associated with lower risks of violence. The effects of women's status on violence was found to be highly context-specific. In the more culturally conservative area, higher individual-level women's autonomy and short-term membership in savings and credit groups were both associated with significantly elevated risks of violence, and community-level variables were unrelated to violence. In the less culturally conservative area, in contrast, individual-level women's status indicators were unrelated to the risk of violence, and community-level measures of women's status were associated with significantly lower risks of violence, presumably by reinforcing nascent normative changes in gender relations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 615 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. mkoenig@jhsph.edu
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Koenig
authors.forename: Saifuddin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.forename: Mian Bazle
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Hossain
authors.forename: A B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Khorshed Alam Mozumder
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001459:Bangladesh / Q000453:epidemiology; D018585:Battered Women / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003256:Community Participation; D003906:Developing Countries; D017579:Domestic Violence / Q000208:ethnology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007514:Islam; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D015995:Prevalence; D012067:Religion; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D012424:Rural Population; D012923:Social Class