Her job, her safety? Domestic violence and women’s economic empowerment in Ethiopia

Domestic violence against women is a pervasive public health problem in all countries regardless of cultural, economic, and political background. Yet, the prevalence of domestic violence is very high in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, I examine the effect of women’s employment on domestic violenc...

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Main Author: Fenet Jima Bedaso
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2025-12-01
Series:Journal of Applied Economics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/15140326.2025.2465100
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author Fenet Jima Bedaso
author_facet Fenet Jima Bedaso
author_sort Fenet Jima Bedaso
collection DOAJ
description Domestic violence against women is a pervasive public health problem in all countries regardless of cultural, economic, and political background. Yet, the prevalence of domestic violence is very high in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, I examine the effect of women’s employment on domestic violence using the Demographic and Health Survey in Ethiopia. Using the Instrumental Variables approach, this paper exploits exogenous geographical variation of the employment rate of women to address the endogeneity of women’s employment decisions due to reverse causality. After accounting for the endogeneity issue, the estimation result shows that women’s employment significantly reduces the risk of domestic violence. This result holds robust across different dimensions such as physical, sexual, and emotional violence and for urban and rural places of residence.
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spelling doaj-art-df08394efe774f3ca39e13ef75d93a1d2025-08-20T03:05:25ZengTaylor & Francis GroupJournal of Applied Economics1514-03261667-67262025-12-0128110.1080/15140326.2025.2465100Her job, her safety? Domestic violence and women’s economic empowerment in EthiopiaFenet Jima Bedaso0Department of Economics, Trier University & GLO, Trier, GermanyDomestic violence against women is a pervasive public health problem in all countries regardless of cultural, economic, and political background. Yet, the prevalence of domestic violence is very high in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, I examine the effect of women’s employment on domestic violence using the Demographic and Health Survey in Ethiopia. Using the Instrumental Variables approach, this paper exploits exogenous geographical variation of the employment rate of women to address the endogeneity of women’s employment decisions due to reverse causality. After accounting for the endogeneity issue, the estimation result shows that women’s employment significantly reduces the risk of domestic violence. This result holds robust across different dimensions such as physical, sexual, and emotional violence and for urban and rural places of residence.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/15140326.2025.2465100women’s employmentinstrumental variables estimationsdemographic and health survey
spellingShingle Fenet Jima Bedaso
Her job, her safety? Domestic violence and women’s economic empowerment in Ethiopia
Journal of Applied Economics
women’s employment
instrumental variables estimations
demographic and health survey
title Her job, her safety? Domestic violence and women’s economic empowerment in Ethiopia
title_full Her job, her safety? Domestic violence and women’s economic empowerment in Ethiopia
title_fullStr Her job, her safety? Domestic violence and women’s economic empowerment in Ethiopia
title_full_unstemmed Her job, her safety? Domestic violence and women’s economic empowerment in Ethiopia
title_short Her job, her safety? Domestic violence and women’s economic empowerment in Ethiopia
title_sort her job her safety domestic violence and women s economic empowerment in ethiopia
topic women’s employment
instrumental variables estimations
demographic and health survey
url https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/15140326.2025.2465100
work_keys_str_mv AT fenetjimabedaso herjobhersafetydomesticviolenceandwomenseconomicempowermentinethiopia