Religion and intimate partner violence in Chile: macro- and micro-level influences.
The Catholic Church has had a strong influence on the Chilean legal and social landscape in ways that have adversely affected victims of intimate partner violence; e.g., it succeeded until just five years ago in blocking efforts to legalize divorce. At the same time, quantitative studies based on survey data from the United States and other countries show a generally favorable influence of religion on health and many other domains of life, including intimate partner violence. The present study explores the puzzle posed by these seemingly opposing macro- and micro-level forces. Results based on data from the 2005 Survey of Student Well-Being, a questionnaire on gender-based violence administered to students at a large public university in Chile, show that moderate or low levels of religiosity are associated with reduced vulnerability to violence, but high levels are not. This non-linearity sheds light on the puzzle, because at the macro level the religious views shaping Chile's legal and social environment have been extreme.
Lehrer
Evelyn L
EL
Economics Department, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607-7121, USA. elehrer@uic.edu
Lehrer
Vivian L
VL
Krauss
Ramona C
RC
D002410:Catholicism / Q000523:psychology*; D002677:Chile; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017579:Domestic Violence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012016:Reference Values; D012067:Religion; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013179:Spouse Abuse / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult