Sharing responsibility through joint decision-making and implications for intimate-partner violence: evidence from 12 Sub-Saharan African Countries

Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects 36% of women in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we examine the relationship between decision-making within 31,243 couples and the incidence of IPV across 12 African countries. Using the wife’s responses to survey questions, we find that compared to joint decision-making, sole decision-making by the husband is associated with a 3.3 percentage point higher incidence of physical IPV in the last year, while sole decision-making by the wife is associated with a 10 percentage point higher incidence. Similar patterns hold for emotional and sexual violence. When we include the combined responses of the husband and wife about decision-making in the analysis, we identify joint decision-making as protective only when spouses agree that decisions are made jointly. Notably, agreement on joint decision-making is associated with lower IPV than agreement on decision-making by the husband. Constructs undergirding common IPV theories, namely attitudes towards violence, similarity of preferences, marital capital, and bargaining, do not explain the relationship. Our results are instead consistent with joint decision-making as a mechanism that allows spouses to share responsibility and mitigate conflict if the decision is later regretted.