Citation

Akter S, Chindarkar N. Soc. Sci. Res. 2019; 78: 187-202.

Affiliation

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, 469C Bukit Timah Road, 259772, Singapore.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ssresearch.2018.12.015

PMID

30670215

Abstract

We propose a conceptual framework to examine the association between mothers' vulnerability to intimate partner violence (IPV) and children's human capital. An important contribution of our framework is that it uses multiple dimensions of human capital and identifies several pathways through which the negative associations of IPV translate to human capital deficits. The conceptual framework is empirically tested using a large-scale representative child-level dataset from India that includes two dimensions of children's human capital - traditional school-based measures of educational attainment, and standardized reading and arithmetic test scores reflecting cognitive ability. Additionally, our study is the first to use an indirect measure of IPV which aims to overcome underreporting bias associated with direct questioning based IPV measures. The results show significant negative correlation between mothers' vulnerability to IPV and children's human capital. The negative association is more pronounced and robust for cognitive outcomes as opposed to the commonly used school-based measures of human capital. As predicted by our conceptual framework, the negative associations are mediated by mothers' poor health and disruption of home environment. We find strong evidence of IPV-exposed children being more likely to experience corporal punishment at school reflecting signs of externalizing behavior. The indirect measure of IPV stands the test of multiple validity and robustness checks.

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Children; Educational attainment; India; Intimate partner violence; Survey data; Test scores