DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: a MATTER of POWER OR POVERTY? Empirical Evidences in Mayan Communities of Mexico

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: A MATTER OF POWER OR POVERTY? Empirical evidences in Mayan communities of Mexico Valentina Costa * † June 25, 2016 Abstract I use data of the World Bank project Programático enfoque para la política de medio ambiente y cambio climatic (2014) developed in Mexico in order to study the determinants of domestic violence against Mayan women. Cases of domestic violence have been increased within the last years in Mexico, particularly amongst Mayan and poor people. Almost 40% of the women of the sample reported conditions or episodes of economic, psychological, physical or multiple violence in their lives. In line with most of the economic literature on this topic, my findings suggest that labour opportunities outside home increase the woman’s relative income that positively shifts bargaining power and reservation utility of the wife. In Mayan communities, this may lead to both an increase and a reduction of domestic violence. On one hand, whenever the women’s economic empowerment is accompanied by a rejection of the rule-setting decided by the man, the increase of relative income may lead to higher domestic violence, as supported by backlash theorists. However, the violent man knows that divorce is a credible threat in this context, especially if women become economically independent from their husbands. On the other hand, if the increase of the woman’s relative income boosts the exercise of female decision-making in domestic sphere, then domestic violence is expected to be reduced, as sustained by feminists’ standard predictions. In the latter case, in fact, the economic empowerment does not threaten the traditional role of the husband, although it empowers women’s decisions. The main contributions of this paper to the literature are the followings. First of all, I use a mix- methodology of capturing and analysing domestic violence that combines both ethnographic and economic methods. Secondly, I integrate two different sociological definitions of domestic violence sustaining that, in Mayan context, domestic violence is explained by both situational-economic and patriarchal values. Finally, since findings show that higher relative income may lead to both an increase and a reduction of domestic violence, I use non-cooperative economic models in support of both standard feminist and backlash predictions. JEL Classification: C78, J12, J15 Key words: bargaining power, domestic violence, Mayan women * Dept. of Economics Law and Institutions, University of Rome Tor Vergata, via Columbia, 2 – 00133 Rome. Email: [email protected]. † I am grateful to my advisor prof. Pasquale Lucio Scandizzo for guidance and important suggestions. I acknowledge the economic support from the World Bank and the in loco academic support from the University of Quintana Roo (Mexico). 1 1. INTRODUCTION In Mexico, 40.6% of the women has suffered psychological violence by their partners at least ones in their lives, 23.8% has suffered economic violence, 13.5% physical violence and, lastly, 7.3% sexual violence (ENDIREH 2011). This high prevalence rate makes crucial the understanding of the determinants of domestic violence in order to better design policies focused on the issue. For this reason, the paper investigates whether the woman’s relative income may explain domestic violence and female decision making within the household. Since domestic violence has a multidimensional nature, the analysis starts by showing, on sociological perspective, that domestic violence suffered by Mayan women is both patriarchal terrorism and common couple violence. On one hand, patriarchal terrorism is exercised over the wife regardless her actions and even if she respects the traditional reproductive role of mother Johnson (1995). Patriarchal terrorism is a product of patriarchal traditions that support the idea to exercise control over the woman who belongs to the man. Domestic violence, thus, is perpetrated continuously by the husband in order to keep his supremacy status. Moreover, with an improvement in the wife’s economic status, the husband may increase the spousal violence also if divorce is a credible threat. This would explain why women in their productive ages are usually more exposed to domestic violence (Castro et al. 2008) especially if they work outside the home and in urban areas (Avila Burgos et al. 2009, Coker et al. 1998, Eswaran et al. 2009, Eng et al. 2009, Gonzalez-Brenes 2004, Mbugua 2014, Oduro et al. 2012, Okasha et al. 2014, Panda et al. 2005, Rapp et al.2012, Semahegn 2013). On the other hand, common couple violence is less patriarchal and more a product of nowadays economic stress beyond any specific gender discrimination (Strauss & Smith 1990). Socio- economic and health problems, in fact, may also exaggerate domestic violence. In low-income households the risk of domestic violence is higher than in any other household and disease generates imbalances in the household economy, increasing health expenses and cases of domestic abuse. (Bertocchi et al. 2012, Bloch et al. 2002, Gonzalez-Brenes 2004, Koenig et al. 2014, Oduro et al. 2012, Okasha et al. 2014, Rao 1998, Rapp et al.2012). This is especially true for diabetes of type 2 which has one of the highest rates in Mexico, with 12% of the population suffering from this condition and the majority of them lives in the Mayan Region. On economic perspective, the household in developing countries is usually modelled as conﬂictual where violent relationships tend to be unstable, the dominant person does not necessarily assure to the other person the minimum utility level required for the individual to stay, and domestic violence may be an internal threat while divorce is the ultimate threat when 2 bargaining fails (Folbre 1986, Sen 1990). The most recent economic theories focus on non- cooperative bargaining models where both partners join non-cooperative process where the tacit division of responsibilities follows traditional gender roles. Each partner accepts to be responsible for gender-specific set of household activities as long as the his (or her) reservation utility is assured. Empirical literature shows that the reservation utility is usually influenced by women’s relative income (Income Sharing Rule), female education (Education Mayan Women), female asset at marriage (House Ownership), economic support by the Government (Oportunidades and Land Ownership), and woman’s satisfaction with her closest network of friends and relatives (Parents and Friends), people from the community and local infrastructures (Neighbours, Health Services and Public Services). The and many other variables contribute in modifying people’s expectations on their own reservation utilities. In line with most of the economic literature on this topic, my findings suggest that labour opportunities outside home increase the woman’s relative income that positively shifts bargaining power and reservation utility of the wife. In Mayan communities, this may lead to an increase of domestic violence. Whenever the women’s economic empowerment is accompanied by a rejection of the rule-setting decided by the man, the increase of relative income may lead to higher domestic violence, as supported by backlash theorists. The violent man, in fact, knows that divorce is a credible threat in this context, especially if women become economically independent from their husbands or they are supported by their families. However, when women are more sustained by their parents but do not work, they are expected to suffer less domestic violence. In this case, the economic empowerment does not threaten the traditional role of the husband, although it may empower women’s decision making. The paper contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First of all, it employs ethnographic information on women’s economic status related to domestic violence in Mexico that, collected into narratives, inform the development of a non-cooperative model of bargaining. Secondly, it specifically involves indigenous people, Mexican-Mayan women in the State of Quintana Roo, and an original dataset set up from a field work. Thirdly, predictions from the model are then econometrically tested with survey data collected from the same population that is the focus of the ethnographic interviews. Results show that, in line with non- cooperative models that supports male backlash, relative income has a positive significant effect on domestic violence. Conversely, results stress the importance of networks and relationships with parents in decreasing domestic violence. Moreover, Mayan women do not curtail their power itself but they prefer to reduce the exercise of their power in order to decrease the amount of abuse as showed by Eswaran and Malhotra (2011). 3 2. LITERATURE REVIEW The debate on the correlation between economic status of women and domestic violence has been extensively investigated in sociology, anthropology and economic literature. Regarding to the sociological approach, Johnson (1995) is the pioneering work on the topic. Taking into consideration the incidence of domestic violence in the United States and in other Western countries, Johnson argues that there are two forms of couple violence to be taken into consideration for implementing public policies. On one hand, there is domestic violence as common couple violence which is less patriarchal and more a product of nowadays economic stress beyond any specific gender discrimination. Although domestic violence occurs in all social classes, poverty may be treated as a strong

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