Intimate Partner Violence and Empowerment

This chapter examines the relationship between empowerment and intimate partner violence (IPV) in India using the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (undertaken in 2019–2021). Existing studies on this aspect may be divided into two broad groups. One group argues that empowerment shields women from IPV, while the other group stresses on the destabilizing role of empowerment in stable patriarchal societies and the backlash it provokes. Using regression models that take into account the possible existence of endogeneity, we show that the shielding effect operates in India. Moreover, the relationship is linear. We also analyse whether empowerment encourages women to seek help or use retaliation as a form of self-defence.