Microfinance Participation,Control Over Resources,and Justification of IPV: Results From a Nationally Representative Sample of Women

Abstract

A high percentage of men and women are purported to justify intimate partner violence (IPV) in countries that are steeped in patriarchy even in the presence of programs such as microfinance that aim to address gender equity. This article examines two assertions that emerge from the literature on microfinance and its potential for positive outcomes for women who participate in it: (a) Microfinance participation is associated with reduced justification of IPV, and (b) microfinance participants with control over their own resources are less likely to justify IPV when compared with microfinance participants who do not have control over their resources. Couples data from a nationally representative survey, the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey, were used in the present study. Propensity score matching and logistic regression analyses were conducted to reveal that (a) microfinance participation was not associated with justification of IPV and that (b) women who participated in microfinance were less likely to justify IPV when they had no control over their resources. Implications for practitioners and policymakers are discussed.

Keywords

intimate partner violence intervention/treatment cultural contexts

Introduction

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive problem affecting 30% of women globally, according to a recent World Health Organization (WHO, 2015) report. In Southeast Asia, the lifetime prevalence rate of IPV is higher than the global rate at 37.7% (WHO, 2015), whereas in Bangladesh it is close to 60% (Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey [BDHS], 2009). Such high rates of IPV are an indication of the extent to which ideologies that support IPV are prevalent (Schuler, Yount, & Lenzi, 2012). Such ideologies inform belief systems, which means, individuals justify IPV, particularly in patriarchal systems that subjugate women in all aspects of their lives, thus normalizing violence against women (Anwary, 2015; R. Campbell & Wasco, 2005; Fahmida & Doneys, 2013; Heise, 1998; Lawoko, 2006; Mookherjee, 2012; O’Donnell, Smith, & Madison, 2002).

It is in the presence of this patriarchal paradigm that women’s groups have campaigned for women’s rights in Bangladesh, culminating in the creation of laws to protect women from violence, as well as economic institutions such as microfinance that aim to empower women (Anwary, 2015; Kabeer, 2012). The present study examines attitudes regarding IPV among women participating in microfinance, that is, whether they are more or less likely to justify IPV when compared with nonparticipants of microfinance. Second, this study examines the interaction effect of microfinance participation and control over resources on justification of IPV, as economic intervention means little for women if they have no control over their resources/earnings acquired through said intervention (Goetz & Gupta, 1996; Hermes & Lensink, 2011). This is particularly important because, research shows, many women hand over their loans to their husbands (Karim, 2014).

Justifying IPV

Extant literature indicates that the key reason for which women remain in violent relationships, or are coerced into accepting and justifying IPV, has to do with economic dependency on abusive partners. Studies show that employed women are more likely to leave abusive relationships, indicating the importance of personal resources in their decision to remain or leave abusive relationships (Estrellado & Loh, 2013; Gelles, 1976; Strube & Barbour, 1984). But seen with the literature that indicates that women who try to leave often face escalated violence or even death when they are found out points to why women may still tend to remain in such relationships (Campbell et al., 2003; Fleury, Sullivan, & Bybee, 2000).

Another reason why women tend to justify IPV is because they have to make sense of their own violent situations and circumstances and support their own actions (or inactions) which then allows them to remain in abusive relationships (Eckstein, 2011). Other reasons, such as not having anywhere to go, having children to take care of, limited freedom of movement and autonomy, and disability, which arguably are also related to limited economic resources, also contribute to justification of IPV (Herbert, Silver, & Ellard, 1991; Martin et al., 2000; Saxton et al., 2001; Singh & Cready, 2015).

Thus, the current study problematizes the notion of justification of IPV, suggesting that some women justify violence as a mechanism to accept their decision to remain in violent relationships in the presence of factors—including structural issues—that keep them in the relationship (Cooke, 2015). This means that the reasons for which women are unable to leave abusive relationship are at the root of the reasons for which they may justify IPV. For others, justification of IPV comes with being part of an environment that espouses patriarchal notions of family and society formation (Hunnicutt, 2009; R. Jewkes, Levin, & Penn-Kekana, 2002; Khan, 2005; Yllo & Straus, 1990). In line with that argument, the current study assumes that not only men, but women may justify violence in intimate partner relationships/marriages when overarching social structures are patriarchal in nature (Schuler & Islam, 2008).

Justifying IPV allows for the maintenance and continuation of IPV in the lives of women, which ultimately has immense costs: individual, social, economic, and political (Plichta, 2004; Reeves & O’Leary-Kelly, 2007). Scholars argue that the individual and community costs are higher in developing countries where institutions are weak in terms of providing help to individuals experiencing IPV as the responsibility of providing help gets relegated to immediate families and community members who may not have the infrastructure to actually provide help (Devries et al., 2013).

Recently, however, more women have been found to be seeking formal help from law enforcement for IPV in Bangladesh, indicating perhaps a change in mind-sets about IPV being a private matter that should be resolved at home. This change may be attributed to high-publicity cases of IPV such as the case of Rumana Manzur, whose husband blinded her in violent rage (Anwary, 2015) as well an increase in gendered “empowering” institutions such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as microfinance that aim to empower women by providing them with micro loans utilizing a collateral-free group lending model that may have positive spillover effects even if poverty estimates may not change over time (Amin, Hossain, & Mathbor, 2013; Basher, 2007; S. S. Chowdhury & Chowdhury, 2011; Chowdhury, 2010; Dalal, Dahlström, & Timpka, 2013; Fernando, Heston, & American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1997; Hoque & Itohara, 2009; T. B. Hossain, Bhuiyan, Siwar, & Ismail, 2013; Lewis, 1997; Mainuddin, Ara Begum, Rawal, Islam, & Shariful Islam, 2015).

In short, this body of literature lead to the assertion that economic independence enables women to leave violent relationships; which means, in the context of this study, economic independence—through microfinance—may allow women to refrain from justifying IPV, as they would then have the freedom to leave, negating the need to justify their own (in)actions to remain in the relationship.

Microfinance and Justification of IPV

Microfinance is a broad term that constitutes financial services, such as credit, insurance, and savings, available to women living in poverty in Bangladesh. Starting out as a micro-loan program to encourage women to build microenterprises to lift themselves out of poverty, some microfinance organization now also include services such as savings account and saving for education for children of microfinance participants (Counts, 2008; Pitt, Khandker, & Cartwright, 2006; Yunus, 2003, 2007).

Microfinance emerged in Bangladesh in the 1970s with Mohammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank, which he built to expand financial inclusion by providing banking services to individuals who are traditionally deemed non-creditworthy. Microfinance organizations, instead of requiring participants to put down collateral, group them into “lending groups” such that all members of the group are held accountable for repayment of the individual loans. The lending groups meet biweekly with an officer from their microfinance organization during which payments and repayments are made and discussions are had about their business practices. Recent research indicates that not all microfinance organizations create lending groups, some are like moneylenders who charge high interest rates on loans (Amin et al., 2013; Cons & Paprocki, 2010; Grameen Bank, 2015; Hermes & Lensink, 2011; A. N. M. Z. Hossain, 2015; T. B. Hossain et al., 2013; Weber & Ahmad, 2014).

Microfinance can be viewed as economic resources that have the potential of generating future income. Proponents of microfinance contend that participating in microfinance has the potential to increase options for women including the option to leave abusive relationships (Basher, 2007). However, microfinance participation has been found to increase experience of IPV among wealthier women as couples may experience status inconsistency (Murshid, Akincigil, & Zippay, 2016). To understand why that may be, the current study aims to provide an understanding of whether microfinance participation allows women to accept IPV, which in turn may allow its maintenance, as the previous study suggests. Thus, the first hypothesis to be tested in this study is that participating in microfinance allows women to justify IPV. However, the opposite could be true, too; access to economic resources may reduce their economic dependency on their husbands, which in turn may create an opportunity for increased odds of leaving abusive relationships (Tolman & Rosen, 2001).

Extant literature also suggests that economic resources need to be coupled with agency over said resources for women to leave abusive relationships, particularly in the context of poverty (Ali & Hatta, 2012; Amin & Becker, 1998). It is the extent to which women have control over their assets or businesses that allow women to have agency and control in the household, which is why it is important to examine the interaction effect of microfinance participation and control over assets on justification of IPV. Thus, the second hypothesis to be tested is that microfinance participants who have control over their own earnings and assets are less likely to justify IPV (Goetz & Gupta, 1996; Kabeer, 2001; Uddin, 2015; Ullah & Hultberg, 2009).

Method

Data

The couples data from the BDHS (2011) were utilized in this study, ensuring that women are matched on characteristics of their husbands as well as their own, thus taking into account individual, household, and relational characteristics that may impact microfinance participation.

Complex sampling design was used to recruit participants of the study from all seven divisions of the country, which was divided into enumeration units with 100 households making up one enumeration unit. After these clusters were created, households were randomly chosen from which the study participants were selected after establishing residency and gaining consent.

The sample size of the original study was 17,141 women aged between 12 and 49 years, and one third of the men married to the women. The current study, however, restricts the sample by using couples data and listwise deletion of missing data. The inclusion criteria of current study were married women between the ages of 15 and 49 who responded to questions related to microfinance participations and the battery of questions on attitudes toward IPV, and control variables which restricted the size to 1,356. The BDHS (2011) data set does not consist of questions on experience of IPV, which precludes the current study from distinguishing between women who experienced IPV and women who justified IPV.

Measures

Justification of IPV is defined in this study as accepting IPV, that is, various forms of violence that are used to control others in an intimate partner relationship, including physical, emotion, sexual, and financial forms of violence (Schuler, Lenzi, & Yount, 2011). The justification process can take the two following forms, even though there are likely to be variations or a mix of these two forms: (a) It is focused on the inability of the perpetrator of violence to control himself—the argument being more salient for sexual crimes, and/or (b) it is focused on the individuals against whom violence has been perpetrated, who blame themselves, or are blamed for the violence. In cultures where men’s subordination of women is widespread and normalized, it is likely that women hold similar ideas about women’s place not just in society but in their households and their relationships (Koziol-McLain, Giddings, Rameka, & Fyfe, 2008; Lees, 1997; Salam, Alim, & Noguchi, 2006).

In the current study, justification of IPV was constructed as women who justified partner violence under certain circumstances: if the wife burns food while cooking, if she neglects children, if she refuses to have sexual intercourse with her husband, and if she goes out without her husband’s permission. If they responded that they justified “wifebeating” under any of the above circumstances, they were deemed as those who justified IPV (justification of IPV = 1). These reasons that were provided to respondents to choose from are based on the normative binary framework of patriarchy and gender, reflecting a system that subordinate women and confer traditional gender roles that require being conformed to, so as to maintain that subordination. When women are unable to adhere to such roles, they justify IPV, allowing men to have their heteronormative privilege over them, which precludes them from having any other identity, and paying for the perceived emasculation that occurs when gender roles are threatened by accepting their own subordination (Anwary, 2015; Butler, 1990). Based on this characterization of IPV and subjugation by Anwary (2015) and Butler (1990), this variable was constructed as a dichotomous variable in which women who identified with at least one of the above statements were deemed to justify IPV. Given that the scenarios provided by the BDHS were not exhaustive, it would be erroneous to categorize those who agree to more than one statement as someone who justifies IPV more strongly than someone who agrees to one.

The key independent variable, microfinance participation, was measured as a dichotomous variable based on membership in one of five microfinance organizations and “any other” not identified by the Demographic and Health Survey questionnaire: Grameen, Brac, Asa, Proshika, and BRBC—all of which use a group lending model in the absence of collateral to provide individual loans to women while all group members are held responsible for loan repayment of group members. Respondents who said they belonged to one or more of these organizations were construed as microfinance participants (microfinance participant = 1). Control over resources was measured through questions on women’s decision-making power over their own earnings. If respondents made sole decisions or joint decisions, they were identified as having control over their resources. If respondents indicated that their husbands made decisions over their earnings, they were identified as not having control over their resources.

Salient control variables were selected from the literature to control for extraneous factors that may affect attitude towards IPV. The demographic variable wealth assets was measured as a dichotomous variable based on an index that constituted material assets that respondents owned, thus differentiating between respondents who owned wealth assets and those who did not. The rest of the demographic variables included age, husband’s age, education level, husband’s education level, employment status, religion, media exposure, number of household members, and gender of household head. Responses pertaining to husbands’ age and education, and gender of household head were cross-checked by comparing the responses of women and their husbands. In case of disparity between the respondent and their husbands’ responses, the cases were eliminated and treated as missing. All missing data were handled through listwise deletion.

Analytic Plan

Univariate analyses were conducted to provide descriptive statistics of all the variables: justification of IPV, microfinance participation, control over resources, and demographic variables.

Propensity score matching (PSM) techniques were used to assess the difference between women participating in microfinance and women not participating in microfinance in terms of justification of IPV. PSM techniques were chosen for its ability to address self-selection and endogeneity biases that are inherent in all cross-sectional survey data. This technique creates treatment (microfinance) and control (non-microfinance) groups based on propensity scores that match women from treatment group to women in control group based on demographic and other variables that may influence microfinance participation. The isolates the treatment (microfinance participation) that differentiates between the treatment and control groups and allows for causal inferences to be made.

Logistic regression was then used to identify the interaction between microfinance participation and control over resources on justification of IPV. This was done to further the research on the difference that microfinance participation may make on justification of IPV to take into account the role that control over resources may play on justification of IPV, given that many women give control of their loans to their husbands which may potentially negates the effect of microfinance participation on women (Goetz & Gupta, 1996; Karim, 2014).

Results

Sample Characteristics

After accounting for missing values, the sample size was restricted to 1,356 respondents. Population estimates (i.e., weighted estimates) calculated for the study population (Table 1) revealed that 35% of the study population justified IPV, 24.4% participated in microfinance, while only 7.6% of the study population had control over their own resources even though approximately 58% of the study population reported to owning household assets. Twenty-one percent of the study population lived in urban areas, 62.3% had exposure to media, 97.8% of the study population reported that their households were headed by males, 87.9% reported to being Muslim, and 91.5% were not employed at the time of the interview. In terms of age, 40.9% were between 15 and 24 years, 32.3% were between 25 and 34 years, 22.4% were between 35 and 44 years, and 4.6% were over 45 years old. In terms of their husbands’ age, only 9.3% were between 15 and 24 years, 33.3% were between 25 and 34 years, 29.2% were between 35 and 44 years, and 28.3% were over 45 years old. In terms of respondents’ education, 23.8% reported to not having any education, 33.8% reported primary education, 37.4% reported secondary education, and 4.9% reported higher education. In terms of the husbands’ education, 28.2% reported to not having any formal education, 33.7% reported completing primary education, 27% reported completing secondary education, and 11.2% reported higher education. In terms of decision making, 66.5% reported that they had decision-making power in the household, that is, they made decisions either independently or in collaboration with their husbands, and 44.3% said they were autonomous and had freedom of movement when it came to seeking health care services for themselves.

Table 1.

Characteristics of the Study Population.

	Sample Size	Population Distribution^a
All	1,356	100.0
Key dependent variable
Justification of IPV
No	888	65.1
Yes	468	35.0
Independent variables
Microfinance participation
No	1,040	75.6
Yes	316	24.4
Control over resources
No	1,256	92.4
Yes	98	7.6
Wealth assets
No	524	41.9
Yes	832	58.1
Urban
No	967	78.9
Yes	398	21.0
Media exposure
No	489	37.7
Yes	867	62.3
Respondents’ age
15-24	549	40.8
25-34	432	32.3
35-44	297	22.4
45+	62	4.6
Respondents’ education
No education	303	23.8
Primary	434	33.8
Secondary	529	37.4
Higher	90	4.9
Number of household members
1-5	780	58.9
6-14	554	39.5
15+	22	1.6
Gender of household head
Male	1,322	97.8
Female	34	2.2
Current employment
No	1,250	91.5
Yes	106	8.5
Religion
Islam	1,172	87.9
Other	184	12.1
Husbands’ education level
No education	346	28.2
Primary education	464	33.7
Secondary education	368	27.0
Higher education	178	11.2
Husbands’ age
15-24		9.3
25-34		33.3
35-44		29.2
45+		28.3
Decision-making power
No	451	33.5
Yes	905	66.5
Autonomy
No	765	55.8
Yes	591	44.3

Note. IPV = intimate partner violence.

Weighted sample; numbers rounded up to 1 decimal point and may not add up to 100.

Average Effect of Treatment on the Treated (ATT) Estimate From PSM

PSM techniques were implemented to compare microfinance participants with nonparticipants who had the same propensity to participate in microfinance using psmatch2 in Stata 13. Microfinance participants were treated as the “treatment group” whereas nonparticipants were treated as the “control group” in this study. Table 2 shows results from the probit regression that was generated as the propensity score of microfinance participation was estimated. Table 3 shows the postmatching results of the estimation of the ATT. The ATT revealed a comparison between the unmatched and matched samples of treatment and control groups. The unmatched sample of microfinance participants and nonparticipants showed a difference of 6.5 percentage points in terms of justification of IPV. The ATT estimation indicated that the difference in justification of IPV between participants and nonparticipants based on the matched sample was only 2.8 percentage points. Neither of the estimates were significant at the .05 level; the estimate from the unmatched sample was found to be significant at the .1 level. Bootstrapping the ATT 2,000 times confirmed that the difference in justification of IPV among the two groups was not significant at the .05 level.

Table 2.

Probit Regression From psmatch2 in Stata to Estimate Propensity Scores of Participation in Microfinance.

Microfinance Participation	Coefficient (SE)
Urban	−0.69 (0.14)*
Wealth assets	0.22 (0.16)
Media exposure	0.38 (0.17)*
Respondents’ age	0.007 (0.01)
Respondents’ education	−0.04 (0.09)
Number of household members	−0.06 (0.03)*
Gender of household head	−0.15 (0.44)
Current employment	−0.15 (0.18)
Religion	0.26 (0.17)*
Control over resources	−0.02 (0.08)
Husbands’ education	−0.12 (0.09)
Husbands’ age	−0/006 (0.01)
Decision-making power	−0.06 (0.18)
Autonomy	0.29 (0.21)
Number of children	0.20 (0.07)*
Constant	−0.50 (0.63)
Number of observations	471
Log likelihood	−272.4
Log-likelihood ratio χ²	56.20
Prob. > χ²	.00
Pseudo-R²	.09

Note. There are observations with identical propensity score values. Sort order is random.

p < .05.

Table 3.

PSM Estimate of the ATT of Justification of IPV From the Matched Sample Using psmatch2 in Stata.

Variable	Sample	Treated	Controls	Difference	SE	t Statistic
Justification of IPV	Unmatched	0.329	0.261	0.065	0.04	1.53
Justification of IPV	ATT	0.329	0.261	0.028	0.06	0.93
	Observed	SE		z	p > \|z\|
Bias-corrected SE of ATT calculated using bootstrap with 2,000 repetitions in Stata	0.06	0.07		.81	.41

Note. PSM = propensity score matching; ATT = average effect of treatment on the treated; IPV = intimate partner violence.

Logistic Regression

Logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the role of “control over resources” among microfinance participants on justification of IPV (Table 4). Results revealed that when microfinance participants had control over resources, justification of IPV increased by 0.09, but this was not significant. On the contrary, when microfinance participants had no control over their resources, justification of IPV significantly reduced by 0.40 (odds ratio [OR] = 0.67; p < .05). Justification of IPV was also found to be significantly negatively associated with autonomy (β = −.33, OR = 0.72; p < .05). In addition, being between the ages of 25 to 34 years was marginally significant (β = −.38, OR = 0.68; p < .1), that is, justification of IPV was less among women aged between 25 and 34 years when compared to women between the ages of 15 and 24 years. Having more children was also marginally associated with justification of IPV (β = .12, OR = 1.13; p < .1). All other variables were not significantly associated with justification of IPV.

Table 4.

Logit Regression: Interaction Effect of Microfinance and Control Over Resources on Justification of IPV (Based on Women in Couple Data).

Justification of IPV	Coefficient (SE)	Odds Ratio (SE)
Microfinance Participation × Control of Resources
0-1	−0.09 (0.48)	0.91 (0.43)
1-0	−0.40 (0.02)*	0.67* (0.11)
1-1	0.09 (0.62)	1.16 (0.77)
Urban	−0.07 (0.18)	0.94 (0.17)
Wealth assets	−0.25 (0.17)	0.78 (0.13)
Media exposure	0.15 (0.15)	1.16 (0.18)
Respondents’ age
15-24 (Ref.)
25-34	−0.38 (0.21)^	0.68^ (0.14)
35-44	−0.28 (0.29)	0.76 (0.22)
45+	−0.15 (0.44)	0.54 (0.54)
Respondents’ education
No education (Ref.)
Primary education	−0.15 (0.18)	0.87 (0.16)
Secondary education	−0.35 (0.24)	0.70 (0.17)
Higher education	−0.81 (0.44)^	0.45^ (0.20)
Husband’s education
No education (Ref.)
Primary education	0.03 (0.18)	1.02 (0.19)
Secondary education	0.03 (0.20)	1.03 (0.21)
Higher education	−0.26 (0.33)	0.77 (0.26)
Husbands’ age
15-24 (Ref.)
25-34	0.009 (0.25)	1.009 (0.25)
35-44	−0.27 (0.29)	0.76 (0.22)
45+	0.003 (0.34)	1.003 (0.34)
Decision-making power	−0.10 (0.13)	0.90 (0.13)
Autonomy	−0.33 (0.14)*	0.72* (0.10)
Number of children	0.12 (0.07)^	1.13^ (0.08)
Employment	−0.01 (0.02)	0.87 (0.36)
Number of household members	0.01 (0.02)	0.99 (0.02)
Gender of household head	0.27 (0.45)	1.30 (0.60)
Religion	0.11 (0.19)	1.13 (0.22)
Constant	0.38 (0.57)	0.71 (0.42)
Number of observations	3,598	3,598
Design df	580	580
Overall F	F(16, 565) = 1.87	F(25, 556) = 1.77
Prob. > F	.02	.01
Svylogitgof
Number of observations	3,596
F-adjusted test statistic = F(9, 572)	1.94
Prob. > F	.04

Note. IPV = intimate partner violence.

p < .05.

p <.09.

Discussion

The findings of the present study revealed that microfinance participants are perhaps not much different from nonparticipants in terms of justification of IPV, indicating that the spillover effect of microfinance does not include changes in attitude towards IPV. This drives home the point that a loan by itself cannot change mind-sets, and that national development plans that aim to empower women should be specific about goals, instead of using empowerment as a catch-all phrase to mean positive outcomes for women (Hanchett, 1997; Junankar et al., 2009; Pal & Dutta, 2015).

The second piece of finding from this study indicating that microfinance participants who had control over resources were more likely to justify IPV, at first glance, appears to counter what the literature says about economic independence and its negative association with justification of IPV. But there are three explanations that may be applicable, each by itself or all together. First, it is possible that microfinance participants who have control over their resources, which means they have a say in the spending of their own money, are among the more successful entrepreneurs who, in turn, are likely to be the ones who turn over their loans to their husbands to run the business. If that is the case, it is likely for a woman, for example, to justify IPV to justify remaining in the relationship, particularly if she and her husband have invested in a loan that is in her name and she needs him to run the business. The added dependency on an aggregate level may be at the root of the increased odds of justifying IPV (Watt, Bobrow, & Moracco, 2008).

Second, it is possible that microfinance participants who have control over their own resources are less likely to leave the stability of having a family and a business that allows them economic freedom, something that they would have to potentially forgo if they decided to leave the relationship, thus justifying (and accepting) IPV in exchange for resources to have control over.

Third, given the high prevalence of lifetime IPV, which is reported by almost 60% of representative samples (BDHS, 2009), as well as high rates of poverty in Bangladesh, women are perhaps more likely to prioritize poverty-reducing strategies over violence-reducing strategies that have implications for her entire family, including their children and parents.

Implications for Policy and Practice

Microfinance practitioners have much to learn from the study findings, particularly regarding the importance of bundling social services with microfinancial services. Microfinancial services, across the world, have been “coupled” with various interventions, indicating the salience of this model. For example, it has been used for reducing HIV risk behaviors (Pronyk et al., 2008), to control tuberculosis (Boccia et al., 2011), for depression (Ssewamala, Neilands, Waldfogel, & Ismayilova, 2012), as intervention for sex workers (Tsai, Witte, Aira, Altantsetseg, & Riedel, 2011), to address AIDS and gender inequality in South Africa (Kim et al., 2007), for global health (Patel, 2014), and more widely to eradicate poverty (Pitt et al., 2006). Bundling microfinance with couple’s intervention regarding gender dynamics and healthy relationships would be a first step toward addressing the problem of justification of IPV such that women and their husbands would learn that violence is not acceptable.

The most important takeaway from the study is perhaps regarding control over resources that suggests that men as heads of household are still in control of resources, including resources that women bring to the household. In the event that women do control the resources, it appears that they accept and justify IPV as part of that equation. This is extremely important for microfinance organizations to understand and be in a position to change (Gill & Stewart, 2011). Microfinance, as a gendered tool, should not be allowed to be oppressive but progressive, and organizations must take steps to prevent women from becoming “free labor” for their husbands and work toward its goal of creating women entrepreneurs with control over their own lives, resources, and bodies (Kabeer, 2005; Karim, 2014).

Finally, the present study should be seen with studies that question the role of empowerment in general, and microfinance in particular, in reducing IPV to provide at least a partial explanation for which IPV rates do not fall with microfinance participation (Chin, 2012; Junankar et al., 2009; Murshid et al., 2016; Pal & Dutta, 2015; Rahman, Hoque, & Makinoda, 2011; Schuler, Lenzi, Nazneen, & Bates, 2013).

Limitations and Future Research

Despite the use of PSM techniques that address self-selection bias, the use of cross-sectional data makes it difficult to make causal inferences. At the same time, self-reported data are prone to social desirability bias, particularly when sensitive questions such as those pertaining to IPV are asked. Future research should use panel data to mitigate issues regarding causality.

A limitation with the BDHS questions pertaining to justification of IPV that scholars such as Schuler and colleagues (2012) have found is that it underrepresents the proportion of individuals who justify IPV, indicating that providing further context may generate a higher number of individuals who justify IPV.

The study is also limited in its ability to provide the context in which microfinance participants’ control over resources may be associated with justification of IPV, revealing a need for qualitative studies to explore the perspectives of women participating in microfinance regarding how microfinance may affect their relationships with their husbands and the role that their husbands play in their microbusinesses.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Macro International for making the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS, 2011) data set available for analysis. Many thanks to all respondents who took part in the study and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Nadine Shaanta Murshid is an assistant professor at the School of Social Work at the University at Buffalo. Her research primarily focuses on structural interventions as well as social and structural determinants of health and well-being outcomes among women and their families, such as intimate partner violence, contraceptive use, and HIV/AIDS.

References

Ali

Hatta

Z. A.

(2012). Women’s empowerment or disempowerment through microfinance: Evidence from Bangladesh. Asian Social Work and Policy Review, 6, 111-121. doi:10.1111/j.1753-1411.2012.00066.x

Amin

Becker

(1998). NGO-promoted microcredit programs and women’s empowerment in rural Bangladesh: Quantitative and qualitative evidence. The Journal of Developing Areas, 32(2), 221-236.

Amin

Hossain

Mathbor

G. M.

(2013). Women Empowerment through microcredit: Rhetoric or reality? An evidence from Bangladesh. Géneros, 2, 107-126.

Anwary

(2015). Construction of hegemonic masculinity: Violence against wives in Bangladesh. Women’s Studies International Forum, 50, 37-46. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2015.02.011

Basher

M. A.

(2007). Empowerment of microcredit participants and its spillover effects: Evidence from the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh. The Journal of Developing Areas, 40, 173-183. doi:10.1353/jda.2007.0013

Boccia

Hargreaves

Lönnroth

Jaramillo

Weiss

Uplekar

Evans

C. A.

(2011). Cash transfer and microfinance interventions for tuberculosis control: Review of the impact evidence and policy implications. The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, 15(Suppl. 2), S37-S49.

BDHS. (2009, March). Bangladesh Demographoc and Health Survey (BDHS) 2007. Retrieved from http://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR207/FR207[April-10-2009].pdf

Butler

(1990). Gender trouble, feminist theory, and psychoanalytic discourse. In Nicholson

(Ed.), Feminism/postmodernism (pp. 324–341). New York, NY: Routledge.

Campbell

J. C.

Webster

Koziol-McLain

Block

Campbell

Curry

M. A.

Laughon

(2003). Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships: Results from a multisite case control study. American Journal of Public Health, 93, 1089-1097.

10.

Campbell

Wasco

S. M.

(2005). Understanding rape and sexual assault: 20 years of progress and future directions. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 20, 127-131.

11.

Chin

Y.-M.

(2012). Credit program participation and decline in violence: Does self-selection matter? World Development, 40, 1690-1699.

12.

Chowdhury

E. H.

(2010). Feminism and its “other”: Representing the “new woman” of Bangladesh. Gender, Place & Culture, 17, 301-318. doi:10.1080/09663691003737587

13.

Chowdhury

S. S.

Chowdhury

S. A.

(2011). Microfinance and women empowerment: A panel data analysis using evidence from rural Bangladesh. International Journal of Economics and Finance, 3(5), 86-96. doi:10.5539/ijef.v3n5p86

14.

Cons

Paprocki

(2010). Contested credit landscapes: Microcredit, self-help and self-determination in rural Bangladesh. Third World Quarterly, 31, 637-654. doi:10.1080/01436591003701141

15.

Cooke

(2015). Understanding women’s decision making: The intolerable choice of living in a violent house or escaping to the uncertainty of homelessness and poverty. Parity, 28(4), 21-22.

16.

Counts

(2008). Small loans, big dreams: How Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus and microfinance are changing the world. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.

17.

Dalal

Dahlström

Ö.

Timpka

(2013). Interactions between microfinance programmes and non-economic empowerment of women associated with intimate partner violence in Bangladesh: A cross-sectional study. BMJ Open, 3(12), e002941.

18.

Devries

K. M.

Mak

J. Y.

García-Moreno

Petzold

Child

J. C.

Falder

Watts

C. H.

(2013). The global prevalence of intimate partner violence against women. Science, 340, 1527-1528.

19.

Eckstein

J. J.

(2011). Reasons for staying in intimately violent relationships: Comparisons of men and women and messages communicated to self and others. Journal of Family Violence, 26, 21-30.

20.

Estrellado

A. F.

Loh

J. M.

(2013). Factors associated with battered Filipino women’s decision to stay in or leave an abusive relationship. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 29, 575-592. doi:10.1177/0886260513505709

21.

Fahmida

Doneys

(2013). Sexual coercion within marriage in Bangladesh. Women’s Studies International Forum, 38, 117-124. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2013.03.002

22.

Fernando

J. L.

Heston

A. W.

, American Academy of Political and Social Science. (1997). The role of NGOs: Charity and empowerment (Vol. 554). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

23.

Fleury

R. E.

Sullivan

C. M.

Bybee

D. I.

(2000). When ending the relationship does not end the violence: Women’s experiences of violence by former partners. Violence Against Women, 6, 1363-1383.

24.

Gelles

R. J.

(1976). Abused wives: Why do they stay. Journal of Marriage and Family, 38, 659-667.

25.

Gill

Stewart

D. E.

(2011). Relevance of gender-sensitive policies and general health indicators to compare the status of South Asian women’s health. Women’s Health Issues, 21(1), 12-18. doi:10.1016/j.whi.2010.10.003

26.

Goetz

A. M.

Gupta

R. S.

(1996). Who takes the credit? Gender, power, and control over loan use in rural credit programs in Bangladesh. World Development, 24(1), 45-63.

27.

Hanchett

(1997). Women’s empowerment and the development research agenda: A personal account from the Bangladesh flood action plan. Feminist Issues, 15(1-2), 42-71.

28.

Heise

L. L.

(1998). Violence against women: An integrated, ecological framework. Violence Against Women, 4, 262-290. doi:10.1177/1077801298004003002

29.

Herbert

T. B.

Silver

R. C.

Ellard

J. H.

(1991). Coping with an abusive relationship: I. How and why do women stay? Journal of Marriage and Family, 53, 311-325.

30.

Hermes

Lensink

(2011). Microfinance: Its impact, outreach, and sustainability. World Development, 39, 875-881.

31.

Hoque

Itohara

(2009). Women empowerment through participation in micro-credit programme: A case study from Bangladesh. Journal of Social Sciences, 5, 244-250. doi:10.3844/jssp.2009.244.250

32.

Hossain

A. N. M. Z.

(2015). Women empowerment in rural local government of Bangladesh. International Journal of Innovation and Applied Studies, 10(2), 584-593.

33.

Hossain

T. B.

Bhuiyan

A. B.

Siwar

Ismail

A. G.

(2013). Microcredit impact on children’s education and women empowerment: A review experience of Grameen Bank microfinance schemes in Bangladesh. Research Journal of Applied Sciences, 5, 66-71.

34.

Hunnicutt

(2009). Varieties of patriarchy and violence against women: Resurrecting “patriarchy” as a theoretical tool. Violence Against Women, 15, 553-573.

35.

Jewkes

Levin

Penn-Kekana

(2002). Risk factors for domestic violence: Findings from a South African cross-sectional study. Social Science & Medicine, 55, 1603-1617. doi:10.1016/S0277-9536(01)00294-5

36.

Junankar

Rahman

Mallik

(2009). Factors influencing women’s empowerment on microcredit borrowers: A case study in Bangladesh. Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, 14, 287-303. doi:10.1080/13547860902975648

37.

Kabeer

(2001). Conflicts over credit: Re-evaluating the empowerment potential of loans to women in rural Bangladesh. World Development, 29(1), 63-84.

38.

Kabeer

(2005). Gender equality and women’s empowerment: A critical analysis of the third millennium development goal 1. Gender & Development, 13(1), 13-24.

39.

Kabeer

(2012). Women’s economic empowerment and inclusive growth: Labour markets and enterprise development (SIG Working Paper 2012/1). International Development Research Centre. Retrieved from http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Documents/NK-WEE-Concept-Paper.pdf

40.

Karim

(2014). Analyzing women’s empowerment: Microfinance and garment labor in Bangladesh. The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 38(2), 153-166.

41.

Khan

F. C.

(2005). Gender violence and development discourse in Bangladesh. International Social Science Journal, 57(184), 219-230. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2451.2005.546.x

42.

Kim

J. C.

Watts

C. H.

Hargreaves

J. R.

Ndhlovu

L. X.

Phetla

Morison

L. A.

. . . Pronyk

(2007). Understanding the impact of a microfinance-based intervention on women’s empowerment and the reduction of intimate partner violence in South Africa. American Journal of Public Health, 97, 1794-1802.

43.

Koziol-McLain

Giddings

Rameka

Fyfe

(2008). Intimate partner violence screening and brief intervention: Experiences of women in two New Zealand health care settings. Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health, 53, 504-510. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2006.095521

44.

Lawoko

(2006). Factors associated with attitudes toward intimate partner violence: A study of women in Zambia. Violence and Victims, 21, 645-656.

45.

Lees

(1997). Ruling passions: Sexual violence, reputation, and the law. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.

46.

Lewis

D. J.

(1997). NGOs, donors, and the state in Bangladesh. In Fernando

J. L.

Heston

A. W.

, American Academy of Political and Social Science (Eds.), Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science—The role of NGOs: Charity and empowerment (Vol. 554, pp. 33-193). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

47.

Mainuddin

Ara Begum

Rawal

L. B.

Islam

Shariful Islam

S. M.

(2015). Women empowerment and its relation with health seeking behavior in Bangladesh. Journal of Family & Reproductive Health, 9(2), 65-73.

48.

Martin

A. J.

Berenson

K. R.

Griffing

Sage

R. E.

Madry

Bingham

L. E.

Primm

B. J.

(2000). The process of leaving an abusive relationship: The role of risk assessments and decision-certainty. Journal of Family Violence, 15, 109-122.

49.

Mookherjee

(2012). The absent piece of skin: Gendered, racialized and territorial inscriptions of sexual violence during the Bangladesh war. Modern Asian Studies, 46, 1572-1601. doi:10.2307/41683038

50.

Murshid

N. S.

Akincigil

Zippay

(2016). Microfinance participation and domestic violence in Bangladesh results from a Nationally Representative Survey. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 31, 1579-1596.

51.

O’Donnell

C. J.

Smith

Madison

J. R.

(2002). Using demographic risk factors to explain variations in the incidence of violence against women. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 17, 1239-1262. doi:10.1177/088626002237854

52.

Pal

Dutta

(2015). Microcredit and empowerment of urban women: A study from Eastern India. Strategic Change, 24, 149-163.

53.

Patel

R. B.

(2014). Microfinance: Untapped potential for global health. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 25, 1718-1722.

54.

Pitt

M. M.

Khandker

S. R.

Cartwright

(2006). Empowering women with micro finance: Evidence from Bangladesh. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 54, 791-831. doi:10.1086/503580

55.

Plichta

S. B.

(2004). Intimate partner violence and physical health consequences: Policy and practice implications. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 19, 1296-1323.

56.

Pronyk

P. M.

Kim

J. C.

Abramsky

Phetla

Hargreaves

J. R.

Morison

L. A.

. . . Porter

J. D.

(2008). A combined microfinance and training intervention can reduce HIV risk behaviour in young female participants. Aids, 22(13), 1659-1665.

57.

Rahman

Hoque

M. A.

Makinoda

(2011). Intimate partner violence against women: Is women empowerment a reducing factor? A study from a national Bangladeshi sample. Journal of Family Violence, 26, 411-420. doi:10.1007/s10896-011-9375-3

58.

Reeves

O’Leary-Kelly

A. M.

(2007). The effects and costs of intimate partner violence for work organizations. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 22, 327-344.

59.

Salam

M. A.

Alim

M. A.

Noguchi

(2006). Spousal abuse against women and its consequences on reproductive health: A study in the urban slums in Bangladesh. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 10, 83-94.

60.

Saxton

Curry

M. A.

Powers

L. E.

Maley

Eckels

Gross

(2001). “Bring my scooter so I can leave you”: A study of disabled women handling abuse by personal assistance providers. Violence Against Women, 7, 393-417.

61.

Schuler

S. R.

Islam

(2008). Women’s acceptance of intimate partner violence within marriage in rural Bangladesh. Studies in Family Planning, 39, 49-58.

62.

Schuler

S. R.

Yount

K. M.

Lenzi

(2012). Justification of wife beating in rural Bangladesh a qualitative analysis of gender differences in responses to survey questions. Violence Against Women, 18(10), 1177-1191.

63.

Schuler

S. R.

Lenzi

Nazneen

Bates

L. M.

(2013). Is women’s empowerment contributing to a decline in intimate partner violence against women in Bangladesh? Evidence from a qualitative study. Studies in Family Planning, 44, 243-257. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4465.2013.00356.x

64.

Schuler

S. R.

Lenzi

Yount

K. M.

(2011). Justification of intimate partner violence in rural Bangladesh: What survey questions fail to capture. Studies in Family Planning, 42, 21-28. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3096063/

65.

Singh

Cready

(2015). Microloans and women’s freedom of physical mobility: Evidence from India. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 14, 333-355.

66.

Ssewamala

F. M.

Neilands

T. B.

Waldfogel

Ismayilova

(2012). The impact of a comprehensive microfinance intervention on depression levels of AIDS-orphaned children in Uganda. Journal of Adolescent Health, 50, 346-352.

67.

Strube

M. J.

Barbour

L. S.

(1984). Factors related to the decision to leave an abusive relationship. Journal of Marriage and Family, 46, 837-844.

68.

Tolman

R. M.

Rosen

(2001). Domestic violence in the lives of women receiving welfare: Mental health, substance dependence, and economic well-being. Violence Against Women, 7, 141-158.

69.

Tsai

L. C.

Witte

S. S.

Aira

Altantsetseg

Riedel

(2011). Piloting a savings-led microfinance intervention with women engaging in sex work in Mongolia: Further innovation for HIV risk reduction. The Open Women’s Health Journal, 5, 26-32.

70.

Uddin

S. S.

(2015). Microcredit towards achieving women empowerment: From the perspective of rural areas of Bangladesh. The Journal of Developing Areas, 49(5), 79-86.

71.

Ullah

M. S.

Hultberg

(2009). Women empowerment through the village pay phone programme of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh: A revisit after ten years. Journal of Development Communication, 20(2), 45-60.

72.

Watt

M. H.

Bobrow

E. A.

Moracco

K. E. B.

(2008). Providing support to IPV victims in the emergency department: Vignette-based interviews with IPV survivors and emergency department nurses. Violence Against Women, 14, 715-726.

73.

Weber

Ahmad

(2014). Empowerment through microfinance: The relation between loan cycle and level of empowerment. World Development, 62, 75-87. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.05.012

74.

World Health Organization. (2015). Global and regional estimates of violence against women. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/violence/9789241564625/en/on01/02/2015

75.

Yllo

Straus

M. A.

(1990). Patriarchy and violence against wives: The impact of structural and normative factors. In Straus

M. A.

Gelles

R. J.

(Eds.), Physical violence in American families: Risk factors and adaptations to violence in 8,145 families (pp. 383-399). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

76.

Yunus

(2003). Banker to the poor: The story of the Grameen Bank. Aurum Press Limited.

77.

Yunus

(2007). Creating a world without poverty: Social business and the future of capitalism. New York, NY: PublicAffairs.