The Role of Social Norm in Acceptability Attitude of Women Toward Intimate Partner Violence in Punjab,Pakistan

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a public health and human rights issue with the social and economic impacts felt by women. Punjab is a male-dominated society, where partner violence is generally accepted as a cultural norm and viewed as normal behavior within a marriage. It stems from attitudes that partner violence is a private matter and usually a justifiable response to misbehavior on the part of the wife. The focus of the current study is to investigate the impact of this cultural norm in acceptability attitude of women toward IPV in Punjab province. A large-scale sample size of more than 46,000 from Multi-Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2018 has been used. The impact of the cultural norm on the wife-beating attitude has been investigated in five dimensions: wife going out without telling him, neglecting the children, arguing with him, refusing to have sex with him, and burning the food. The logistic regression results indicate that wife-beating is accepted as a community norm. It has been found that if wife-beating is accepted by community, then the individual female is more than 3 times more likely to consider it justifiable in all five dimensions. The other important factors are education level, household wealth, ethnicity, media exposure, and wife–husband age difference. The level of education of women plays the most important role in rejecting the wife-beating norm, as an increase in level of education is associated with an increase in the probability of rejecting the wife-beating. So, the current study suggests that there is a dire need to increase the female education level to overcome this issue.

Keywords

community violence perceptions of domestic violence domestic violence anything related to domestic violence

Introduction

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is generally described as behavior by an intimate partner that causes physical, sexual, or psychological harm, including physical violence, sexual oppression, psychological exploitation, and controlling manners (Mikton, 2010; World Health Organization [WHO], 2010). IPV is the most general form of violence confronted by females in both high- and low-income economies and, due to its extent, it is known as a severe international issue (P. A. Ali & Naylor, 2013; Varma et al., 2007) with majority of the victims being females (Flynn & Graham, 2010; Winstok & Straus, 2014). As per WHO multicountry study on woman’s health and domestic violence against women, the rate of women experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner at some point in their lives ranged between 15% and 71% (García-Moreno et al., 2005). Given that a majority of victims of IPV undergo silence (Hassan et al., 2014; Lazenbatt et al., 2009), the rate could be even higher. Violence is an important social health problem (Ishida et al., 2010; Krantz et al., 2005). It is liable for both women’s adverse physical (Ford-Gilboe et al., 2009; Stein & Kennedy, 2001) and mental health (Lindhorst & Oxford, 2008). Understanding violence against women is a multifaceted matter. Various elucidations coming from different theories have been offered to comprehend this phenomenon.

Research has proposed that schooling (Antai & Antai, 2008; Dalal et al., 2012) gender (Bryant & Spencer, 2003; Koenig et al., 2003), age (Hindin, 2003; Khawaja et al., 2008), residence (Antai & Antai, 2009; Waltermaurer et al., 2013), and so on, may account for differences in attitude toward IPV. Furthermore, there is a significant role of community norms in elucidation women’s attitudinal acceptance of IPV (Jesmin, 2017). The focus of this study is to empirically investigate the importance of the communal norm in elucidating women’s attitudinal acceptance of IPV. Although the impact of other determinants (as described above) is well investigated, little is known about the influence of the communal environment on one’s IPV acceptance attitudes. Several studies show that permissive norms of IPV in the community may have links with raised risks for individual perpetration of IPV or individual justification of such behavior (Koenig et al., 2006; Waltermaurer et al., 2013). Further studies reveal that the impact of individual-level risk factors of IPV against women may differ between communities dependent upon the difference in community-level acceptance of such behavior (see, for example, Boyle et al., 2009). Although community-level norms have been studied in these few studies, however, in the case of Pakistan, such studies do not exist.

IPV is a public health and human rights issue in Pakistan, with the social and economic influences felt by women. Pakistan is a developing economy with 207 million residents. It is a male-dominated society, where partner violence is usually accepted as a cultural norm and regarded as normal behavior within marriage and generally acceptable response to misbehavior on the part of the wife. Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan with more than 50% of the population of the country. Cultural norms in Punjab stipulate that violence against women is not to be discussed openly. Studies from Pakistan in general and Punjab province in particular on IPV against wives are few (Ali et al., 2011, 2013; Zakar et al., 2012, 2013); furthermore, these studies are based on small samples and have not considered the community norm in explaining such behavior. This study has been performed in Punjab province on a large-scale with a sample size of more than 46,000 from Multi-Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2018 and with particular focus on community norm. The rest of the study is organized as follows: after introduction in the first section, section “Literature Review” provides an overview of some relevant literature, section “Data and Method” is about data and variable description, section “Empirical Results” provides empirical results and section “Conclusion” concludes the study.

Literature Review

Attitude toward IPV has been established as one of the most important determinants of IPV (Gage & Hutchinson, 2006; Jewkes et al., 2002). The research revealed that there has been a close association between the individual’s attitude toward IPV and the actual happening of spouse abuse (Doe, 2000; Straus, 2004). Females who show positive attitude toward IPV may be at a greater risk of constant abuse than those who do not (Gage, 2005). A study used data of 1995 Egyptian from demographic health survey and established that 60% of ever-beaten females took beating as an ordinary part of marital life (Diop-Sidibé et al., 2006). Another research that used nationally representative telephone survey data of 5,238 adults observed that the respondents who were victims of violence had a considerably greater acceptance of IPV (Simon et al., 2001). Likewise, for men, the helpful attitude of wife-beating was determinant of IPV perpetration (Abrahams et al., 2004; Sambisa et al., 2010). Furthermore, attitude of women toward wife-beating may work as a sign of both women’s status in the country and social norms toward IPV (Hindin, 2003; Uthman et al., 2009, 2010). In a community, individual’s acceptance of IPV can offer measurement for the stage of social, cultural, and behavioral transformation of a given society in its process of evolution toward the gender-egalitarian society (Uthman et al., 2009). Although some researchers claimed that variations in knowledge and attitude toward IPV did not mean changes in people’s behavior (Lundgren & Amin, 2015), most researchers have the point of view that attitude toward IPV has been very significant to the success of violence eradication (Abrahams et al., 2006; Fincham et al., 2008). It has been observed that IPV is positively linked with factors such as age (Abrahams et al., 2006; Fincham et al., 2008; Millett et al., 2015; Walker et al., 2013). By using Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) done between 1998 and 2001 from seven economies, Rani and Bonu (2009) found that younger participants justified wife-beating more often. In a countrywide survey of 5,907 females aged between 15 and 49 in Zimbabwe, Hindin (2003) noted that younger age has been associated with female justifying wife-beating. Likewise, research was done in Uganda that used data of 5,109 females; it was also discovered that the maximum levels of supporting IPV have been found among younger females (Koenig et al., 2003).

It has been found that females who reside in rural settings have been more likely to justify wife-beating as compared with their urban counterparts (Dalal et al., 2012; Hindin, 2003). In relation to the difference between the attitude of residents of urban and rural settings, education level is also different in these two settings. It is without doubt that the culture of rural areas, like the tendency of keeping gender inequality, acts as a constraint that has effect on individuals’ attitudes (Wendt, 2009). A study was conducted in Turkey in which the respondents were medical students of a university; in this study, it was found that patriarchal ideology has been one of the causes to justify IPV (Haj-Yahia & Uysal, 2008). The individual with egalitarian gender attitude had a better attitude toward IPV (Flood & Pease, 2009). The research revealed that women with secondary-level education or higher were less likely to accept wife-beating (Antai & Antai, 2009; Hindin, 2003; Rani & Bonu, 2009; Shorey et al., 2014; VanderEnde et al., 2012).

High wealth status has also been found as a determinant of reducing the risk of accepting IPV. Increasing wealth status was most likely to believe that wife-beating was not justified (Hines, 2007; Koenig et al., 2006; Uthman et al., 2009). Media exposure also has been found an important determinant. A survey was conducted in Nigeria in which 3,911 rural females aged 15 to 49 were surveyed; the finding of this study was that females who had no access to newspaper and television were found much more likely to accept IPV, on the contrary, females who had no access to radio were found less likely to justify IPV as compared with those who had it (Antai & Antai, 2008). Similarly, a study in Nigeria consisting of 3,725 females has shown that 88% of the females who accepted IPV did not have access to newspapers, 66% of the females did not have access to television. However, 76% of the women who justified IPV had access to radio (Antai & Antai, 2009).

Data and Method

This research examines the determinants of wife-beating acceptance with a particular focus on community norms in Punjab (Pakistan). We utilized data of MICS 2018. The MICS is household surveys supported by UNICEF. The sample for the MICS Punjab, 2018 was planned to provide estimates for a large number of indicators on the situation of children and women at the Punjab level, for urban and rural areas, and for all 36 districts of Punjab. The urban and rural areas within each district were identified as the main sampling strata. Using the listing of households from the census 2017, for each sample enumeration area, the sample of households was selected in two stages. At the first stage, enumeration blocks, primary sampling units (PSUs), were selected, and at the second stage, 20 households were selected using systematic sampling with random start from each PSU. The total sample size was 53,840 households in 2,692 sample clusters. Six questionnaires were used in the survey. One of the questionnaires was for females aged 15 to 49, which has been used in the current study. The privacy of respondents was ensured and the interviews were conducted in a comfortable environment. After excluding questionnaire with incomplete information, we had a sample of 46,067 women for the analysis.

Dependent Variable

Wife-beating acceptance

In MICS survey, there is no question regarding actual IPV occurrence, so the attitude of women regarding wife-beating by intimate partner is used as outcome variable. Five standard questions are asked in MICS survey about attitude of women regarding wife-beating by the intimate partner: wife going out without telling him, neglecting the children, arguing with him, refusing to have sex with him, and burning the food. Each question is asked separately with option of yes or no. The response “yes” implies that she believes wife-beating is justified in that specific dimension, and “no” implies that she does not find wife-beating justified in that specific dimension. It is general practice that an index is constructed from these questions (Boyle et al., 2009; Jesmin, 2015, 2017; Kishor & Johnson, 2004; Marshall & Furr, 2010). However, the problem with index is that the effect of selected factors on specific dimension cannot be ascertained. To analyze the effect of socioeconomic factors on each specific dimension, the answer in each dimension is used as the dependent variable.

Independent Variables

Community norms and disadvantages

For evaluating the community norms and disadvantages, three variables have been used. These variables are (a) mean wife-beating score of the community, (b) proportion of women in the community who are illiterate, and (c) proportion of women in the community who live in the poorest households. The mean wife-beating score of the community reveals how male-controlled the community is. Communities are defined according to the enumeration blocks. For the census purpose, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) divides the country with enumeration blocks. Each enumeration block is a delimited area comprising about 120 households. In the MICS, each enumeration block is considered as a PSU. The PSUs are typically urban neighborhoods or rural villages that represent within-country variations that are not attributable to an individual. Each PSU has been considered as a community. PSUs have been used in previous health research (see, for example, Stephenson, 2009; Subramanian et al., 2011). Every respondent in the MICS has been identified by a PSU number. For creating community-level variables, individual responses were aggregated to the PSU level. The mean wife-beating score of the community is the average score of responses of that particular PSU. The proportion of women in the community who are illiterate has been obtained by aggregating the number of illiterate women in each PSU divided by the total number of females in each PSU. The variable proportion of women in the community who live in the poorest households has been obtained by dividing the total number of women in the poor and poorest wealth quintiles with total number of women in each PSU. These variables have been used in previous research (Gustafsson et al., 2014; Jesmin & Chaudhuri, 2013; Stephenson, 2009; Uthman et al., 2010).

Control Variables

Individual-level demographic and socioeconomic variables such as wife and husband age difference, ethnicity, education, media exposure, and household position in wealth quintiles have been used as control variables. Age difference has been categorized into four levels (0–5, 6–10, 11–15, and more than 15 years). Education has been categorized into five levels: (a) no schooling, (b) primary, (c) middle, (d) secondary, and (e) higher education. Household wealth was categorized into five groups based on the MICS-constructed wealth index: (a) the poorest, (b) second, (c) middle, (d) fourth, and (e) the richest. The index was created in three steps using data of household assets by principal components analysis (PCA). In the first step, indicators of the asset were selected on the basis of the observable assets of households. In the second step, a PCA was used to assign weights to each asset. In the third step, sorting of household was done in ascending order of asset possession and then divided as follows: the lowest 20% of households were coded as poorest; the next 20% as second, households between 40% and 60% of asset richness were coded as middle, households between 60% and 80% of asset richness as fourth, and between 80% and 100% were coded as richest. An additive media exposure index has been created that measured the frequency with which women were exposed to any of the three media: television, mobile, and newspaper/magazine. The additive media consumption index took values from 0 through 9, where 0 = no media consumption at all and 9 = used three media almost daily.

In our sample, average age of the women was 33 years (range = 15–49) with the standard deviation of 8 years and the average age of their husbands was 38 years with the standard deviation of 10. On average, women got married at the age of 21 years (SD = 5). Keeping in view the average age at marriage and SD, we may say that about 95% of the women got married till the age of 30 years. About 29% of women in the sample were from urban areas and 71% from rural settings. It is observed that approximately 44% were illiterate or just preprimary and 20% passed the primary level. Attainment of higher education in the province was just 18%. In the wealth quintile, the women were evenly distributed among poorest, poor, middle, rich, and richer classes. The response of 69% women was against the wife-beating by husband in all (five) situations; they did not consider wife-beating justifiable and only 11% favor wife-beating in all these five situations (Table 1).

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics.

Variable	Percentage	M	SD
Age of woman		33	8
Age at first marriage		21	5
Age of husband		38	10
Residence
Urban	29
Rural	71
Education level
None/Preschool	44
Primary	20
Middle	10
Secondary	13
Higher	13
Wealth quintile
Poorest	20
Second	21
Middle	20
Fourth	20
Richest	18
Adaptability (wife-beating)
Not justified in all cases	69
Justified in all five	11
If she goes out without telling husband	20
If she neglects the children	22
If she argues with husband	24
If she refuses sex with husband	21
If she burns food	16
	M	Maximum	Minimum
Media consumption index	4.15	9	0
Mean score of community wife-beating norm	1.034	4	0
Proportion of women who are poor in a household	40%	100	0
Proportion of women who are illiterate in a household	44%	100	0

As far as individual dimensions are concerned, the highest acceptability has been observed for arguing with the husband, and 24% of the women responded that wife-beating is justifiable if she argues with her husband. The second highest dimension in which wife-beating is considered justifiable by women has been neglecting the kids and 22% of women consider it justified. About 21% of the women consider wife-beating justifiable when she refuses sex with her husband, and 20% of the women replied that wife-beating is justifiable if she goes out without telling her husband. About 16% of women believe that wife-beating is justifiable if she burns food.

The value of the average media exposure index is 4.15 out of the logical maximum value of 9. The average value of the community wife-beating norm is around 1.04 out of maximum value 4. The proportion of women in a community who belong to a poor household is 40%. The proportion of women in a community who belong to an illiterate household is around 44%.

The dependent variable in each dimension, wife going out without telling him, neglecting the children, arguing with him, refusing to have sex with him, and burning the food, is categorical with two categories, that is, yes or no. When the dependent variable is categorical and has two values, then the suitable technique for the estimation is logistic regression.

Logistic regression analysis studies the association between a categorical dependent variable and a set of independent (explanatory) variables

Let

p_{i} = p r (y = \frac{1}{x = x_{i}})

$p_{i}$ is the probability of wife-beating is justified in that specific dimension, the model can be written as follows:

l o g (\frac{p_{i}}{1 - p_{i}}) = l o g i t (p_{i}) = β_{0} + β_{i} x_{i}

The above model is a simple model with one independent variable. Here, Pi is the probability of wife-beating justified in that specific dimension, and, for example, if we consider x_i is the residence (rural/urban) of the respondent. When x_i = 1 (urban), β_i shows the log of odds of rural women considering wife-beating justified in that specific dimension. We can write the model in terms of odds as follows:

\frac{p_{i}}{(1 - p_{i})} = exp (β_{0} + β_{i} x_{i})

Or in terms of the probability of the outcome (e.g., wife-beating justified) occurring as follows:

p_{i} = \frac{\exp (β_{0} + β_{i} x_{i})}{(1 + \exp (β_{0} + β_{i} x_{i}))}

Conversely, the probability of the outcome not occurring (e.g., wife-beating not justified) is

1 - p_{i} = \frac{1}{(1 + \exp (β_{0} + β_{i} x_{i}))}

Notice that we have so far not included a residual term in the model and have instead expressed the model in terms of population probabilities. But we could write it as follows:

p_{i} = p_{i} + f_{i} = (\frac{\exp (β_{0} + β_{i} x_{i})}{(1 + \exp (β_{0} + β_{i} x_{i}))}) + f_{i}

It may be kept in mind that f_i is not normally distributed, and furthermore, it is assumed that it was linear regression.

Empirical Results

The regression analysis has also been used in the current study and a separate logistic regression has been applied by taking each dimension of wife-beating justification as a dependent variable. The independent variables were identical in all these five dimensions. The odds ratios and their p values are reported in Table 2. Looking at the model estimates, the odds ratio associated with the age difference (6–10 years) between husband and wife were statistically different (lies between 0.925 and 0.950) from base category (0–5 years) in four dimensions of wife-beating, except in a situation when she burns the food. It means that the women who were 6 to 10 younger than their husbands were less likely to accept the wife-beating by the husband as compared with the base category. The age difference between husband and wife from 11 to 15 years and more than 15 years does not have any significant impact on the female attitude toward acceptance of wife-beating by husband.

Table 2.

Logistic Regression Results.

Variables	She Goes Out Without Telling Him	She Neglects the Children	She Argues With Him	She Refuses to Have Sex With Him	She Burns the Food
Wife and husband age difference (base 0–5 years)
6–10 years	0.937** (0.040)	0.950* (0.098)	0.925*** (0.010)	0.946* (0.086)	0.946 (0.116)
11–15 years	1.041 (0.368)	1.015 (0.737)	1.069 (0.126)	1.080 (0.092)	0.985 (0.768)
Above 15 years	1.012 (0.836)	0.974 (0.660)	0.984 (0.777)	1.033 (0.59)	0.927 (0.266)
Education
Primary	0.825*** (0.000)	0.837*** (0.000)	0.791*** (0.000)	0.806*** (0.00)	0.777*** (0.000)
Middle	0.599*** (0.000)	0.634*** (0.000)	0.620*** (0.000)	0.580*** (0.000)	0.550*** (0.000)
Secondary	0.526*** (0.000)	0.530*** (0.000)	0.472*** (0.000)	0.486*** (0.000)	0.402*** (0.000)
Higher	0.324*** (0.000)	0.347*** (0.000)	0.301*** (0.000)	0.302*** (0.000)	0.240*** (0.000)
Wealth
Poor	0.919** (0.028)	0.921*** (0.000)	0.880*** (0.000)	0.872*** (0.000)	0.860*** (0.000)
Middle	0.724*** (0.000)	0.697*** (0.000)	0.684*** (0.000)	0.652*** (0.000)	0.642*** (0.000)
Rich	0.629*** (0.000)	0.568*** (0.000)	0.572*** (0.000)	0.571*** (0.000)	0.504*** (0.000)
Richest	0.468*** (0.000)	0.459*** (0.000)	0.450*** (0.000)	0.422*** (0.000)	0.371*** (0.000)
Community level frailty
Average score of community wife-beating norm	3.295*** (0.000)	3.399** (0.000)	3.382** (0.000)	3.404*** (0.000)	3.298*** (0.000)
Proportion of women who are illiterate	0.994*** (0.000)	0.993*** (0.000)	0.993*** (0.000)	0.992*** (0.000)	0.994*** (0.000)
Proportion of women living in poor households	0.992*** (0.000)	0.993*** (0.000)	0.994*** (0.000)	0.994*** (0.000)	0.994*** (0.000)
Ethnicity (base Punjabi/Potohari)
Urdu	0.885* (0.106)	0.813*** (0.006)	0.822*** (0.007)	0.727*** (0.00)	0.847** (0.077)
Saraiki	1.043 (0.196)	1.072*** (0.029)	1.045 (0.161)	1.034 (0.298)	0.962 (0.282)
Other	1.178** (0.027)	1.128* (0.107)	1.072 (0.348)	1.118 (0.153)	0.950 (0.548)
Ever given birth to a child	0.926* (0.063)	0.929* (0.062)	0.952 (0.206)	0.968*** (0.006)	1.027 (0.562)
Media exposure	0.982** (0.014)	0.992 (0.262)	0.999 (0.928)	0.980 (0.423)	0.984 (0.045)
Constant	0.217*** (0.000)	0.228*** (0.000)	0.262*** (0.000)	0.220*** (0.000)	0.141*** (0.000)
N	46,067	46,067	46,067	46,067	46,067

***,**,* represent level of significance at 1%, 5%, and 10% level of significance.

The results indicate that educated women have been against the wife-beating by husband in all five situations. As the level of education goes on increasing, the acceptability of wife-beating goes on decreasing. At the highest level of education (higher) of women, the acceptability of wife-beating by husband is lowest in all five dimensions. The odds ratios associated with a higher level of education are smaller than the lower level of education. Lower the value of odds ratio, less likely will be women in accepting the wife-beating by the husband. It is evident from the table that these odds ratios vary a bit for different dimensions of wife-beating by the husband. The odds ratio was low in a situation of food burning and high in a case when she neglects kids. For example, for women with primary education, the odds ratios vary from 0.777 to 0.837 and 0.77; in case of burning the food, the odds ratio indicates that women are less likely to accept the beating in case of burning the food as compared with other dimensions. Similarly, the odds ratios associated with higher level of education of women vary between 0.24 (burn food) and 0.347 (neglect children); again, it indicates that lowest acceptability is for burning the food. Furthermore, the odds ratios associated with higher level of education indicate that women with higher level education have been almost 3 times less likely to accept wife-beating by husband when she neglects the children and 4 times less likely to accept wife-beating when she burns food.

The odds ratios associated with wealth status also depict a similar pattern as education level. As the level of household wealth goes on increasing (from poorest to richest), the odds ratios go on decreasing and are lowest for the richest households. Similarly, the odds ratios are lower in the case of burning the food and higher in the case when she goes out without telling her husband. There has been a visible difference between the odds ratios of different levels of household wealth. It shows that their opinion against the perception that husband beating is justified strongly associated with their family background. If she belongs to a wealthier household, she has been more comfortable to oppose wife-beating in any situation. For example, the odds ratio in case she goes out without telling her husband, of poorest (base category) and richest were 1.00:0.46 which shows that the acceptance of wife-beating of poorest women was more than 2 times as compared with richest women or in other words we may say that richest women have been more than 2 times less likely to accept wife-beating.

The current study used average community wife-beating acceptability norm, the proportion of women who were illiterate, and proportion of women who were poor as societal indicators in the analysis. The variable of main interest has been community wife-beating acceptability norm as it indicates the social behavior toward wife-beating. From the estimates, it is observed that if acceptance of wife-beating prevailed at the societal level, then women have been more likely to accept the wife-beating by husband. The odds ratios associated with the social wife-beating acceptability norm in all five dimensions are more than 3 and it varies from 3.295 to 3.404. As the higher value of odds ratio represents the higher acceptability for wife-beating, the value of odds ratio greater than 3 indicates that a woman is more than 3 times (in comparison with base category which is 1 for community) more likely to accept wife-beating. It means that if wife-beating is considered justified in society, then individual women are more than 3 times more willing to accept beating by husband. The effect of indicator, proportion of women who are illiterate, and proportion of women living in poor household were significant in all five dimensions, but associated odds ratios are very much closer to 1, which indicates no significant difference due to these variables.

To control the effect of ethnicity, the women were segregated into four categories with respect to language, and Punjabi language was taken as base category. Urdu-speaking women (odds ratios vary from 0.813 to 0.885 for burning food and going out without telling him, respectively) were against wife-beating by husband in any case. The results for Saraiki women marginally (odds ratio = 1.072) favor and justified wife-beating only when she neglect kids. The women other than these languages accept (odds ratio = 1.178) beating only when they go out without informing their husbands. The next variable is women who ever gave birth and the base category is women who never gave birth. This variable was included in the analysis to test the phenomenon that whether women who are not fecund are more likely to comprise and accept wife-beating and results have been supporting it up to a large extent. The results indicate that the opinion of a woman with a kid as compared with women with no kids opposes beating more, in situation when she goes out without telling him and refused sex with him. The last variable is media exposure index for women. Media exposure or media consumption has positive impact on the attitude of women to reject wife-beating and it is statistically significant only in case when she goes out without telling her husband.

Conclusion

IPV is a public health and human rights issue with the social and economic impacts felt by women. Punjab is a male-dominated society where partner violence is generally accepted as a cultural norm and viewed as normal behavior within a marriage. It stems from attitudes that partner violence is a private matter and usually a justifiable response to misbehavior on the part of the wife. Cultural norms in Punjab stipulate that violence against women is not to be discussed openly. The main focus of the current study has been to investigate the impact of the cultural norms in the acceptability attitude of women toward IPV in Punjab province. A large-scale sample size of more than 46,000 from MICS 2018 has been used. The impact of the cultural norms on the wife-beating attitude has been investigated in five dimensions: wife going out without telling him, neglecting the children, arguing with him, refusing to have sex with him, and burning the food. It has been found that if wife-beating is accepted by community, then individual female is more than 3 times more likely to consider it justifiable in all five dimensions. The level of education of women plays an important role in rejecting the wife-beating norm, as an increase in level of education is associated with an increase in probability of rejecting the wife-beating. The second important factor in rejecting the wife-beating is wealth status. An increase in level of wealth status (from poorest to richest) is associated with an increase in probability of rejecting the wife-beating. The woman exposure to media is also important determinant of rejecting wife-beating norm; furthermore, ethnicity is also important factor and finally wife and husband age difference also matter up to some extent. So to change attitudes of women that are accepting of IPV, there is need to focus on female education. If female education is increased, it may also lead to more media exposure and better wealth status of the household. To increase women’s education, there should be female education–specific interventions such as overcoming the accessibility and affordability issues, which can be done by increasing public spending on female education.

Footnotes

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.

ORCID iD

Muhammad Irfan Malik

Author Biographies

Muhammad Nadeem is currently working as Assistant Research Fellow at Punjab Economic Research Institute (PERI), Planning & Development Department, Government of the Punjab (Pakistan). He is a PhD (Economics) candidate at National College of Business Administration & Economics, Lahore. Before joining PERI, he has worked as lecturer (Economics) at University of the Punjab Lahore (Pakistan).

Muhammad Irfan Malik is currently working as Associate Research Fellow at Punjab Economic Research Institute (PERI) and visiting faculty at Minhaj University Lahore. He earned his PhD in Econometrics from International Islamic University, Islamabad (Pakistan). Prior to PERI, he was associated with International Islamic University, Islamabad and PMAS Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi as a visiting faculty.

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