Greater income inequality is associated with higher rates of intimate partner violence in Latin America

Abstract

Objective<br/ >The aim of the study was to examine the association between income inequality and experiences of past-year intimate partner violence.<br/ ><br/ >Study design<br/ >Multiple country population-based surveys.<br/ ><br/ >Methods<br/ >We examined associations between experiences of past year physical or sexual violence perpetrated by an intimate partner and income inequality using correlation tests. Income inequality was measured using both the Gini coefficient and ratios between the incomes of the richest 10% and the poorest 10%; data on gross domestic product (GDP) per capita were also retrieved. All income data were sourced from Human Development Reports closest to the year each violence survey was administered.<br/ ><br/ >Results<br/ >A positive association between income inequality and intimate partner violence was statistically significant using either the 10:10 ratio of income inequality (r = 0.78, P = 0.003) or the Gini coefficient (r = 0.69, P = 0.011). Including GDP per capita as a covariate slightly strengthened these associations (r = 0.79, P = 0.004 and r = 0.73, P = 0.011, respectively).<br/ ><br/ >Conclusions<br/ >To our knowledge, this is the first quantitative study of societal income inequality and intimate partner violence. Despite the small sample of countries, there is a significant association between higher inequality and higher levels of violence.