Economic Stress and Intimate Violence:

¶ … Economic Stress and Intimate Violence: Testing Family Stress and Resources Theories

This paper addresses the article by Fox et. al, titled "Economic Stress and Intimate Violence: Testing Family Stress and Resources Theories." In this article, the investigators asked whether household economic factors influenced the risk of domestic violence toward women. Specific factors that were addressed include various measures household financial status of men and women, notably focusing on various measures of employment, and whether there was meaningful statistical results indicating an increased risk of violence toward women. The primary data sources used in the study are National Survey of Household and Families, and U.S. Census tract data. This paper will briefly evaluate the article, critique the methodology of the paper, discuss issues that detract from the strength of the study results, and offer a revised plan to study the effect of economic stress in household violence.

Evaluation

The authors test different hypotheses of economic stress as risk factors for increased domestic violence, primarily on women. In shaping the hypothesis, two main theoretical frameworks are used -- Family Stress Theory, and Resource Theory. A data set is used in testing these hypotheses, built from the National Survey of Households and Families, as well as using Census level tract data. The investigators used a sample size of approximately 10,000 households between the data sets of Wave I and Wave II available from the NSHF. Measurement variables included "Intimate Violence," "Employment Measures," "Financial Adequacy," and control variables. Intimate Violence was identified from the NSHF, where the respondents were asked how often in the last year they became physically violent with a spouse or partner in the course of an argument. Employment Measures included 'not employed and currently employed', (0, 1), total number of hours worked (excluding hours for housewives -- n=0), employment classification (white or blue collar status). Financial Adequacy was measured based on degree of current satisfaction with current finances, and frequency of worry about meeting expenses with current income. A drawback on measurements of 'financial adequacy' is that this level of data was not available in Wave I, and so makes it impossible to do a proper analysis using both data sets.

Issues with Methodology

The primary concern with the methodology used in this paper, is not how the investigators chose to run their statistics, or what variables they chose to stand up to test the hypotheses. The problem is in the nature of the data, at a fundamental level. The National Survey of Families and Households, while robust and useful, has fatal errors that make it untenable to extrapolate data that will be useful to women in a male-funding world. One major problem is that the survey was limited to married primary respondents, living with a spouse. Domestic violence often occurs outside of marital bonds, and so will go underreported in analysis which employs the NSFH data set.

In researching the NSFH, some shortcomings are revealed. The NSFH asks short series of questions based on outcome, which do not draw the respondent in to answer the questions in a thoughtful, and ultimately, honest fashion. NSFH questions appear in the middle of a lengthy interview, and respondents may be tired, or simply lose attention at that point. Additionally, the importance of domestic violence issues may be lower in the mind of the respondents than in those of the interviewers, so reports of domestic violence may be underrepresented. Moreover, the NSFH did not consider the extent that nonviolent argumentative tactics are used as means of intimidation.

In a study that is trying to determine whether economic variables are salient risk factors in increasing domestic violence on women, a fatal data set failing that underreports domestic violence at all, is hardly going to produce meaningful outcomes with real life data that can influence funding, policy, and societal norms.

A Better Design

To better assess whether economic factors influence domestic violence behavior against women, data should be gathered from sources which are more organic to the problem, which include information from Rape Crisis Centers, battered women's centers, socially conscious groups, and other groups with a feminist agenda. This is not to confuse "feminist" with "confrontationist." Rather, it is to elucidate the often buried reality of the incidence of domestic violence due to a bias toward nonfeminist rubrics of dominance in relationships.