Family Types and Intimate-Partner Violence: a Historical Perspective∗
Family Types and Intimate-Partner Violence: A Historical Perspective∗ Ana Tur-Prats† June 2015 Abstract This paper examines the historical origins of violence against women, in contrast to earlier literature, which focused only on short-term determinants. It analyses the relation- ship between traditional family patterns (stem versus nuclear) and intimate-partner vio- lence (IPV). Stem families are those in which one child stays in the parental household with spouse and children, so that at least two generations live together. I model the behavior of a traditional peasant family and show how coresidence with a mother-in-law increases a wife’s contribution to farmwork. This increased contribution is shown to potentially de- crease the level of violence, since the wife’s reduced productivity acts as a deterrent. In my empirical analysis I use Spanish data, as Spain offers IPV measures of the highest quality as well as a persistent geographical distribution of family types. Results show that areas where stem families were socially predominant in the past currently have a lower IPV rate. I con- trol for a large number of contemporary, historical, and geographical variables. To address causality, I use the stages and differences in the Christian conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (722-1492) as an instrument for the different family types. My instrumental variable results are consistent with my original findings. Keywords: Gender inequality, cultural norms, persistence, inheritance, coresidence, Christian con- quest. JEL Classification: D03, J12, N43, Z13. ∗ I thank Larbi Alaoui, Antonio Cabrales, Pierre-Andre´ Chiappori, Gordon Dahl, Mercedes Fernandez-Martorell,´ Christian Fons-Rosen, Enrique Garc´ıa-Bernal, Paola Giuliano, Nathan Nunn, Javier Ortega, Luigi Pascali, Imran Rasul, Pablo Salvador Coderch, Marcos Vera- Hernandez,´ Jordi Vidal-Robert, and Hans-Joachim Voth for insightful comments.
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