Intimate partner violence in India: a study of associated factors

Purpose Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women is a global phenomenon. IPV is a public health, social policy and human rights concern across the globe. It remains a serious issue in Indian context as well. This paper aims to identify the factors associated with IPV using India’s nationally representative National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data. Design/methodology/approach To identify the factors associated with IPV in India, the authors have used binary logistic regression to estimate two models. The outcome variables are women facing physical violence in the first model and sexual violence in the second. The explanatory variables are broadly socio-economic indicators related to the women and a few other indicators related to the characteristics of the household. Findings The authors found that urban and working women face higher odds of violence. Alcohol consumption by the husband increases the risks of IPV, whereas risk decreases with women’s autonomy. Even though the prevalence of physical and sexual violence has decreased by 6.8% and 3.9% from 2005–2006 to 2019–2021, the data shows that women across social, economic and regions still face violence from their partners. However, the physical violence increased from 2015–2016 to 2019–2021. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is a distinct attempt to use pooled data of the nationally representative sets NFHS-3 (2005–2006), NFHS-4 (2015–2016) and NFHS-5 (2019–2021) to study the factors associated with IPV in India.