Influences of Women's Empowerment on Marriage and Violence in Bangladesh

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的目的是澄清个人和社区一级的机制，妇女赋权与她在孟加拉国农村遭受亲密伴侣暴力的风险有关。它采用了四种创新的方法战略来实现这一目标。首先，关于增强妇女权能的现有研究大多使用相对较少的项目来捕捉这一概念的狭窄范围。该项目以国家卫生研究院先前为孟加拉国妇女赋权提供的发展赠款（#1R21HD053580 - 01 PI舒勒）为基础，纳入了一套全面的、适合具体情况的妇女赋权指标。第二，以前的研究IPV的态度和规范使用了一个狭窄的范围内的项目来捕捉这些概念，这些项目可能已经不同（错误）理解的调查受访者。在这里，新的措施，对IPV的态度在农村孟加拉国，通过另一个发展研究基金从美国国立卫生研究院（#1R21HD058173-01 PI舒勒和Yount）开发的使用。第三，以前的研究环境对IPV的影响受到有限的措施IPV和社区背景。该项目采用一套综合措施来描述性别化的社会背景，这将适当地反映赋予妇女权力的个人一级进程。它还包括一套全面的措施，捕捉妇女经历的IPV的类型和时间。最后，该项目结合了定量和定性方法的优势，以加强对个人、夫妇和社区一级变量运作和相互作用影响妇女遭受IPV风险的机制的解释。定量数据收集将结合联合收割机的三波（基线加两个后续行动）面板调查的3500个最近结婚的妇女（RMW）与一个横断面调查，在基线管理，1500个已婚男性（EMM）和1500个已婚女性（EMW）。从RWM、EMW和EMM中提取的调查数据将有可能生成3类指标，以在多层次分析框架中检验研究假设：村庄水平和个人水平的自变量、个人水平的IPV结果和控制变量。定性数据将包括：1）具有相对较高赋权水平的年轻已婚妇女的生活史叙述，其中同时引出赋权和IPV在其生活中的演变; 2）与年轻已婚男子、年轻已婚妇女（结婚2-6年）以及老年男子和妇女的小组讨论。 公共卫生相关性：本研究综合运用各种研究方法，以更好地了解在性别规范快速变化的社会中增强妇女权能与亲密伴侣暴力之间的关系，以及妇女所生活的社区的特点如何改变这种关系。阐明所涉及的社会进程将为制定干预措施提供更好的基础，以减轻暴力侵害妇女行为的高风险，并最大限度地利用与向更大程度的两性平等过渡有关的保护因素。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this study is to clarify the individual- and community-level mechanisms by which a woman's empowerment is associated with her risk of experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) in rural Bangladesh. It employs four innovative methodological strategies to achieve this objective. First, much of the existing research on women's empowerment has used relatively few items to capture a narrow range of dimensions of this concept. This project builds on a prior NIH developmental grant on women's empowerment in Bangladesh (#1R21HD053580 - 01 PI Schuler) by incorporating a comprehensive and contextually appropriate set of indicators of women's empowerment. Second, prior research on attitudes and norms about IPV has used a narrow range of items to capture these concepts, and such items may have been variously (mis)understood by the survey respondents. Here, new measures of attitudes regarding IPV in rural Bangladesh, developed through another developmental research grant from NIH (#1R21HD058173-01 PIs Schuler and Yount) are used. Third, prior studies of contextual influences on IPV have suffered from limited measures of both IPV and community context. This project uses a comprehensive set of measures to characterize the gendered social context, which will appropriately situate individual-level processes of women's empowerment. It also includes a comprehensive set of measures that capture the type and timing of IPV that women experience. Finally, the project combines the strengths of quantitative and qualitative methods to enhance interpretation of the mechanisms by which individual-, couple- and community-level variables operate and interact to influence a woman's risk of experiencing IPV. The quantitative data collection will combine a three-wave (a baseline plus two follow-ups) panel survey of 3500 recently married women (RMW) with one cross-sectional survey, administered at baseline, of 1500 ever-married men(EMM) and 1500 ever-married women (EMW). The survey data elicited from RWM, EMW, and EMM will make it possible to generate 3 categories of indicators to test the study hypotheses in a multilevel analytic framework: independent variables at both the village level and individual levels, individual- level IPV outcomes, and control variables. Qualitative data will consist of 1) life history narratives of young married women with relatively high levels of empowerment in which the evolution of empowerment and IPV in their lives are simultaneously elicited; and 2) group discussions with young married men, young married women (married 2-6 years), and older men and women. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This study uses a combination of research methods to better understand the relationship between women's empowerment and intimate partner violence in a society where gender norms are in rapid flux, and the ways that characteristics of the communities in which women live modify this relationship. Elucidation of the social processes involved will provide a better basis for developing interventions to mitigate the elevated risks of violence against women and maximize the protective factors associated with transitions toward greater gender equality.