Type:	Journal Article
Title:	Partner killing by men in cohabiting and marital relationships
Other Titles:	Journal of interpersonal violence
Authors:	Shackelford, Todd K Mouzos, Jenny
Keywords:	Homicide
Year:	2005
Publisher:	Sage Publications
Citation:	20 (10), October 2005
Notes:	General Overview: This article reports on an Australian study that aims to replicate the findings and key patterns of a study carried out in the United States. The study compared the incidence of uxoricide (the murder of a women by her intimate partner) in married couples and those that are cohabiting. Method: For the Australia data the authors used statistics from the National Homicide Monitoring Program, which details all homicides in Australia. For the US data the authors drew on Shackleford's earlier research that used statistics from the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports. Comparisons were then made between rates of uxoricide by relationship type (cohabiting or marital), by ages of the partners and by age difference between partners. These results were then compared with the Australian data, for the same factors. Results:The study found that women in cohabiting relationships are more likely to be killed by their partner than married women (9.5 times higher in Australia and 8.9 times higher in the US). For cohabiting men, uxoricide rates are highest for younger men in Australia but for men older than 45 years in the US. For married men, uxoricide rates are highest for younger men in both countries. In both countries, women partnered to relatively older men and relatively younger men experience higher rates of uxoricide than women partnered to same age men. For married women, data from both countries showed that women partnered to men who are older by two or more age categories (more than 20 years) incur the highest uxoricide risk. For cohabiting women in Australia, women partnered to men more than 10 years younger than them were at higher risk, while in the US women partnered to men more than 20 years older were at greatest risk. Discussion:The similarity in country data findings regarding the risks for cohabiting women is important for formulating policy, given that marriage is in decline in Western countries. Risk tends to decrease as age increases. In Australia the highest risk group is for cohabiting women in the youngest age group, whereas in the US it was for cohabiting women in middle age. Perpetrator rates were highest for younger married men in both Australia and the US. Conclusion: Several possible reasons were suggested for the increased risk faced by cohabiting women including that there were several demographic differences between them and married women, for example, that cohabiting women tend to be younger, less educated, they tended to be in occupations where they are earning less and they are more likely to misuse alcohol. It was also suggested that cohabiting men may feel less in control of their partners than their married counterparts and may, therefore, feel the need to control them through violence. More research is needed to discover what the protective factors in marriage are and what would be effective, appropriate interventions that may prevent these killings.
URI:	https://anrows.intersearch.com.au/anrowsjspui/handle/1/16078
ISSN:	0886-2605
Appears in Collections:	Journal Articles

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