The EU states with the highest levels of gender equality, such as the Nordic countries, have disproportionally high prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence against Women (the Nordic Paradox)

Intimate Partner Violence against Women in the EU: A Multilevel Analysis of the Contextual and Individual Impact on Public Perceptions. Matilda Karlsson, Maria Wemrell, Juan Merlo & Anna-Karin Ivert. Women & Criminal Justice, Nov 9 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/08974454.2020.1835792

Rolf Degen's take: https://t.co/24B7R5U9Rp https://t.co/nnXwGpUfUn

Abstract: Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) poses severe threats to women’s health and rights. This study investigates the role of country context and gender equality in shaping individual perceptions of the severity of IPVAW. Multilevel logistic regression analyses of a Eurobarometer survey on attitudes toward IPVAW from 27 EU states showed that male gender, young age, low education, low self-assessed social position and particularly perceiving IPVAW as uncommon were associated with perceiving IPVAW as less severe. The likelihood of perceiving IPVAW as less severe was higher in countries with low gender equality. Between-country variance accounted for 14% of the variability, while country-level gender equality accounted for 22% of the between-country variance. We conclude that efforts toward strengthening perceptions of IPVAW as a severe issue should focus on awareness-raising and on increasing country-level gender equality.

Keywords: European Uniongender-based violencegender equalityintimate partner violence against womenmultilevel analysispublic perceptions

INTRODUCTION

Violence against women is a global phenomenon and a concern for public health, human rights and social policy (Devries et al., 2013; Krantz, 2002). Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is the most common type of violence against women and puts women at risk of severe direct injury as well as long term illness (Campbell, 2002; World Health Orgainization, 2010). It constitutes a serious threat to women’s security, human rights and equal participation in society. Despite measures taken by the European Union (EU) to combat IPVAW (European Commission, 2010), one in five women in the EU still experience IPVAW during their lifetime (FRA, 2014).

As noted by Gracia and Lila (2015, p. 13), IPVAW “is a complex phenomenon that needs to be understood within the wider social context and within the social and cultural norms that permeate it. Public attitudes and responses regarding violence against women reflect these norms and play an important role in shaping the social climate in which the violence occurs.”

Public beliefs and attitudes form an important part of the social context of IPVAW (Copp et al., 2019; Martín-Fernández et al., 2018; Waltermaurer, 2012) and can influence IPVAW prevalence, help-seeking behavior among victims and responses from judicial systems and support organizations as well as ambient communities (Gracia et al., 2009, 2014; Gracia & Herrero, 2006; Rizo & Macy, 2011; West & Wandrei, 2002). Notably, victim-blaming attitudes can reflect public tolerance toward IPVAW and have often been used to explain or justify IPVAW (Boethius, 2015; Gottzén & Korkmaz, 2013; Gracia, 2014; WHO, 2002). Previous research has also shown that perceived severity of IPVAW is associated with the willingness to intervene when gaining awareness of a case of IPVAW (Gracia et al., 2018). How incidents of IPVAW are perceived in society is thus important for future prevention and policy, as well as for available support services or sanctions (Gracia & Herrero, 2006; Waltermaurer, 2012).

Evidence from previous research related to IPVAW suggests that prevalence of and attitudes toward IPVAW seem to be influenced by contextual-level factors (Gracia et al., 2015; Heise & Kotsadam, 2015; Herrero et al., 2017; Kovacs, 2018; Sanz-Barbero et al., 2018). However, the prevalence of IPVAW does not cut equally across alla sociodemographic groups within countries (Kovacs, 2018). For example, research on differences in IPVAW prevalence between socioeconomic and demographic groups within the country of Sweden has not always shown clear and consistent results (Lundgren et al., 2002; Nybergh et al., 2013). This indicate that individual-level characteristics and contextual factors work together toward the persistence of IPVAW, and possibly also the attitudes justifying it. Such an interplay between factors at different levels in the causation of IPVAW has previously been described in what has been called the integrated ecological approach (Heise, 1998).

In the international research, Individual-level socioeconomic status has proven to be correlated with both the prevalence of IPVAW (Herrero et al., 2017; Lauritsen & Schaum, 2004; Sanz-Barbero et al., 2018) and with the attitudes that justify it (Gracia & Herrero, 2006; Ivert et al., 2018; Stickley et al., 2008; Tran et al., 2016; Waltermaurer, 2012; Waltermaurer et al., 2013). Previous research has also shown that education is an important individual level predictor for IPVAW (Herrero et al., 2017; Sanz-Barbero et al., 2018) as well as attitudes toward IPVAW (Gracia & Herrero, 2006; Ivert et al., 2018; Stickley et al., 2008; Tran et al., 2016; Waltermaurer, 2012; Waltermaurer et al., 2013). Furthermore, research has also shown that the type of residential area (e.g. urban vs rural) correlates to attitudes that justify IPVAW (Gracia & Tomás, 2014; Ivert et al., 2018; Waltermaurer, 2012; Waltermaurer et al., 2013). However, according to a systematic review by Gracia et al. (2020) gender was the most frequently reported factor correlating with attitudes. They found that, broadly speaking, the results were consistent in showing that males in general tend to accept, justify and perceive IPVAW as less severe than women. Regarding noted inconsistencies in associations between age and attitudes, Gracia et al. (2020) suggest that this could be the result of the varying methods for sampling, measuring and analyzing these parameters. Moreover, country of residence does seem to provide a relevant contextual lens for understanding these types of attitudes (Ivert et al., 2018; Uthman et al., 2010). Literature investigating contextual-level factors is, however, scarce. This is particularly the case when it comes to the EU (Ivert et al., 2018). It remains important to look not only at the fact that contextual factors seem to matter, but also to what extent they are useful in predicting individual attitudes (Merlo et al., 2017).

Feminist theories consider IPVAW to be a result of unequal gender norms and patriarchal structures in society (Lawson, 2012), meaning that gender inequality should be considered as a central and fundamental driving force behind gender-based violence such as IPVAW. Promoting increased gender equality is often put forward as a way of reducing IPVAW (García-Moreno et al., 2015; Jewkes, 2002; Uthman et al., 2010). Several studies resonate with feminist theories in that gender equality is negatively related to IPVAW and attitudes toward IPVAW (Archer, 2006; Heise & Kotsadam, 2015; Sanz-Barbero et al., 2018; Uthman et al., 2010). Still, some counterintuitive results have shown that the EU states with the highest levels of gender equality, such as the Nordic countries, have disproportionally high prevalence of IPVAW. This phenomenon has been referred to as the Nordic Paradox (Gracia & Merlo, 2016). Moreover, victim-blaming attitudes have been found to be higher in Nordic countries compared to other EU countries with lower levels of gender equality (Gracia & Tomás, 2014). Thus, findings indicating that higher levels of gender equality are associated with higher rates of IPVAW contradict theories postulating that IPVAW is a result of gender inequality. Several hypotheses and theories attempt to explain this relationship. One explanation discussed in the literature is that of issues related to reporting (Gracia & Merlo, 2016). Another frequent explanation, often discussed in rape research, is that increased gender equality or demands for gender equality can result in a backlash against women, and thus in increased rates of violence against women (Whaley, 2001; Wemrell et al., 2020). This so-called backlash hypothesis has proven to be useful when analyzing changes in IPVAW rates over time in certain contexts (Xie et al., 2012). Nonetheless, regardless of the reasons for the relationship between the prevalence of IPVAW and gender equality, the issue remains that the prevalence of attitudes that justify IPVAW is also high in countries with high levels of gender equality. To better understand these relationships, further research on the public’s attitudes toward IPVAW is needed.

The perceived severity of IPVAW among the public is an under-researched subject. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of country context and gender equality on the perceived severity of IPVAW. Moreover, it aims to evaluate the ability of contextual and individual level factors to accurately discriminate between someone who perceives IPVAW as severe and someone who does not. The following three research questions were posed:

1. To what extent does the country of residence, in addition to individual sociodemographic characteristics, affect individuals’ perceptions of the severity of IPVAW?

2. How accurately can individual sociodemographic characteristics and country context discriminate between those who find IPVAW to be severe and those who do not?

3. To what extent can between-country variance in perceptions of the severity of IPVAW be explained by the country level of gender equality?

DISCUSSION

IPVAW poses a serious threat to women’s health, security and human rights globally. To contribute to an increased understanding of the attitudes that can potentially affect the prevalence of and the community responses toward acts of IPVAW, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of country context and gender equality in addition to individual sociodemographic characteristics on perceived severity of IPVAW. Moreover, the study aimed to evaluate the ability of these contextual and individual factors to accurately discriminate between those individuals who perceive IPVAW as severe and those who do not.

Conclusive relationships were found between the outcome and all individual sociodemographic predictors, meaning that male gender, young age, low education and low self-assessed social position in society as well as habitation in a rural area was associated with a higher likelihood of perceiving IPVAW as a less severe issue. Perceptions of IPVAW as not at all common was the stronger individual predictor, the influence of which was much greater than that of not knowing an IPVAW victim.

Our results show that 14% of the total variance in individual perceptions lie at the contextual level, and thus represent the between-country variability. While no definite interpretation exists for the magnitude of the ICC, according to a recently proposed framework for preforming geographical comparisons (Merlo et al., 2019), an ICC between 10 and 20% falls into the category of large geographical differences. Thus, our results support the importance of the societal context, alongside that of individual factors, for the shaping of perceived severity of IPVAW (Heise, 1998). Furthermore, individuals residing in countries with a lower GEI were more likely to perceive IPVAW as less severe, compared to individuals in high GEI countries. The DA of the models was fair, and the study suggests that disparities exist between, as well as within, nation state borders.

A particularly interesting finding of this study is the relationship between the specific contextual effect of GEI and the individual perceptions of the severity of IPVAW. The respondents in countries with low GEI were more likely to perceive IPVAW as less severe compared to those in countries with high GEI. In support of the understanding of IPVAW as strongly related to patriarchal structures in society (Lawson, 2012), increased country-level gender equality is here associated with citizens’ perceptions. However, the inconclusive difference in perceptions between the countries in the middle and high GEI groups indicates that the association with GEI is only relevant to a certain level. The fact that the country-level GEI explains 22% of the total contextual-level variance means that it is an important factor for understanding the variance in attitudes, even though some of the contextual-level variance is still unaccounted for. The low POOR for the low GEI group indicates a homogeneous relationship. Only 9% of the time, an individual from a low GEI country was less rather than more likely to perceive IPVAW as less severe than someone from a high GEI country. Meanwhile, the high POOR for the medium GEI group is coherent with the inconclusiveness of the difference in odds between the medium and high GEI groups. Here the heterogeneity is so large that in almost half of the cases the relationship is opposite to the average. It may here also be mentioned that, as noted above, a larger share of the respondents in low and medium than in high GEI believed IPVAW to be very common.

Nevertheless, the importance of the GEI is coherent with Heise (1998) integrated ecological approach. In this study the GEI represents the societal structure and gender norms at the contextual level (representing the macrosystem in Heise’s model) in which individuals are embedded. Our results show that the contextual level works conjointly with relational, situational and personal characteristics in relation to individual perceptions. Considering the Nordic paradox (Gracia & Merlo, 2016) and the previous difficulties in establishing a conclusive relationship between GEI and attitudes toward IPVAW in the EU (Ivert et al., 2018), the results of this study are more surprising than they may appear.

IPVAW persists despite being illegal and, according to the results of this study, socially undesirable, particularly in countries with high GEI (FRA, 2014; Gracia & Merlo, 2016). The inconsistency between people’s perceptions and their actions raise questions which merit further investigation. Why is the prevalence of IPVAW so high in the high GEI countries, even though the inhabitants claim to find it very severe? We could assume that in a context where people find IPVAW to be less severe, fewer cases of IPVAW would be reported, which could explain the lower prevalence. Conversely, in countries with high GEI, where it is perceived as very severe by a larger share of the population, more cases will be taken seriously and thus be reported (Gracia & Merlo, 2016). This could be one explanation as to why the high GEI countries also have high prevalence of IPVAW (FRA, 2014; Gracia & Merlo, 2016). However, that does not explain why there is such a high prevalence of IPVAW cases to begin with in more gender equal contexts where more people perceive it to be more severe.

The fact that people in countries with high a GEI tend to find IPVAW to be more severe is also surprising if we apply the backlash hypothesis. One possible explanation of the inconsistency between perception and action, or between theory and practice (SOU, 2004, p. 121), in the high GEI countries could be that respondents here feel a stronger obligation to answer in a certain way, to avoid stigmatization associated with downplaying the severity of IPVAW. Wemrell et al. (2020) investigate the discrepancy between gender equality and the relatively high prevalence of IPVAW in the specific context of Sweden. One of their suggestions for this discrepancy is that the image of Sweden as a gender-equal country may in itself have hindered an appropriate response to IPVAW, therefore allowing its continuation. Following this reasoning it is plausible that respondents in countries with high GEI would respond that they find IPWAW to be very severe because it is a societal norm, and because it corresponds to a gender-equal self-image, even if this does not correspond with their actions. This could indicate a type of self-monitoring behavior, to ensure that one’s responses agree with the social context (Snyder, 1987): a phenomenon previously referred to as social desirability bias (Brace, 2008).

Limitations

Since a cross-sectional study design was used, this study identifies correlations but not causal relationships. Moreover, the data used is nearly 10 years old, and we can assume that societies have undergone changes during these years. For example, IPVAW has received more attention in public debate, especially following the viral spread of the MeToo movement in 2017. Outdated numbers do not present a serious limitation, however, as our aim is not to demonstrate IPVAW prevalence levels but to investigate how factors at different levels impact individual perceptions, in ways which are likely to remain consistent over time.

The Eurobarometer survey does not specify how well different ethnic minorities are represented in the sample, or the amount of time respondents had lived in the country of residence into which they were recorded. We thus have no way of knowing if this may have resulted in a sample bias. Moreover, the survey, and in extension this study, excludes the population with gender identities other than male or female. Hence, no conclusions can be drawn concerning this part of the population. The response rates varied between different countries and the Eurobarometer survey does not include any information concerning the characteristics of the non-responders, meaning that a non-response bias cannot be ruled out.

Moreover, the data includes only two levels: the country level and the individual level, although in a previous study on prevalence of IPVAW in Valencia, Spain the community level has proven to be important (Gracia et al., 2015). The community level would represent the exolevel in Heise’s ecological model, and adding this third level to this study could have added interesting and useful insights. However, we were unable to do so since the survey data did not include community data on the respondents’ areas of residence.