Can Safety Nets Reduce Gender-Based Violence? How?
Can Safety Nets Reduce Gender-Based Violence? How?
A growing body of evidence finds that cash transfers reduce intimate partner violence (IPV) in various contexts, even when the cash transfer was not designed to do so. The effects are comparable with standalone violence-prevention interventions and consistent with various forms of IPV (physical, emotional, controlling behavior). Researchers hypothesize that safety nets curb gender-based violence (GBV) via three impact pathways: by reducing poverty and food insecurity, empowering women, and increasing women’s social capital. Average results mask heterogeneity: some groups of women are at higher risk of GBV than others. For example, women whose partners have low levels of education and abuse alcohol tend to be at greater risk of GBV. Evidence also suggests that, when cash transfers are combined with group-based accompanying measures, they are more likely to reduce IPV, even if GBV prevention is not an explicit objective of the accompanying measures.