Citation

Huis MA, Hansen N, Lensink R, Otten S. Br. J. Soc. Psychol. 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Department of Social Psychology, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Wiley Blackwell)

DOI

10.1111/bjso.12348

PMID

31667883

Abstract

Research has mainly studied women's empowerment assessing personal (e.g., self-esteem) or relational (e.g., decision-making) empowerment indicators. Women are not isolated individuals; they are embedded in social relationships. This is especially relevant in more collectivist societies. The current research provides a relational perspective on how husbands may hamper women's empowerment by inflicting intimate partner violence (IPV) assessing women's self-reported experience. We tested the link between self-esteem and experienced IPV on financial intra-household decision-making power among women entrepreneurs (N = 1,347) in Northern Vietnam, a collectivistic society undergoing economic development. We report two measurement points. As expected, self-esteem (and not IPV) was positively related to more power in intra-household decision-making on small expenditures, which are traditionally taken by women. However, IPV (and not self-esteem) was related to less decision-making power on larger expenditures, traditionally a domain outside women's power. We test and discuss the directionality of the effects and stress the importance of considering women's close relationship when investigating signs of women's empowerment.

© 2019 The Authors. British Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.

Language: en

Keywords

empowerment; financial intra-household decision-making; gender inequity; intimate partner violence; self-esteem; women