Findings

Targeting cash, voucher, or food transfers towards female heads of household led to a significant decrease in the prevalence of IPV. Importantly, the study finds no evidence that domestic violence increases as a consequence of the program due to attempts to extract resources.

The intervention significantly decreased the prevalence of different types of violence, including controlling behavior, moderate physical violence, and physical or sexual violence, by 6 to 7 percentage points. However, the study found no impact on the prevalence of emotional violence and severe physical violence.

While the magnitude of the impact varies slightly across the three different transfer modalities (food, vouchers, and cash), all of them led to significant reductions in the prevalence of moderate physical violence.

Most strikingly, reductions in the prevalence of IPV attributable to the transfer program are largest for women with low initial decision-making power in their household. Such women are 11 percentage points less likely to experience controlling behaviors, 10 percentage points less likely to experience moderate physical violence, and 11 percentage points less likely to experience any physical/sexual violence compared to women in the control group with low decision-making power. The impact on IPV for women with high decision-making is significantly smaller in magnitude than that for women with low decision-making

In short, this study suggests that cash or in-kind transfers targeted towards women may be effective in reducing the prevalence of intimate partner violence among poor households. However, as the authors point out, it is unclear whether the observed reductions can be attributed to an increase in women’s bargaining power within the family, or is better explained by a decrease in the level of stress within the household due to lessened financial and economic strains.