Societal attitudes towards domestic violence in the low- and middle-income countries: A gendered country-level analysis

Societal acceptance of domestic violence against women (DV) is one of the strongest predictors of DV perpetration. Drawing on microdata harmonised from the Demographic and Health Surveys and metadata from international databanks, this paper presents a gendered analyses of the prevalence and pattern of women’s and men’s attitudes justifying DV in 49 low- and middle-income countries. Societal acceptance of DV is contextualised within the feminist social-ecological framework of country-level social, economic and political factors. These are examined using stepwise multiple linear regression and Bayesian techniques. The findings suggest more widespread justification of DV across Sub-Saharan Africa and South(east)-Asia compared with Latin America and Central Asia. Gender differences were significant in 45 of the 49 countries. In majority of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South (east) Asia women were more likely to justify DV than men. Among the contextual predictors of the societal acceptance of DV, women’s economic rights and living in conflict-affected countries were significantly associated with both women’s and men’s levels of DV acceptance. However there were significant gender differences in the influence of education, poverty and democracy levels on societal acceptance of DV. These gender differences must be recognised in to develop effective national DV prevention strategies