The Silencing Effect of Disorganization: Community Structure as a Moderator of the Pathway from Gender Stereotypes to Intimate Partner Violence

This study examines how community-level social structure moderates the pathways through which traditional gender role stereotypes translate into intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization. Cross-sectional data from the 2023 Jeju Domestic Violence Survey ( N = 707) were analyzed using multigroup structural equation modeling, with participants classified by the Social Disorganization Index (SDI) of their residential administrative district. The pathways linking gender stereotypes to victimization differed substantially by community context. In low-SDI communities, gender stereotypes facilitated IPV through the cognitive justification of violence. In high-SDI communities, gender hierarchy acceptance was inversely associated with reported victimization—a pattern the present study interprets as reflecting disclosure suppression under conditions of structural instability, rather than a genuine reduction in violence occurrence. The findings suggest that effective intervention requires community-specific strategies—strengthening detection and reporting infrastructure in disorganized neighborhoods, while targeting the normative justifications that sustain violence in cohesive settings.