Employment and the risk of domestic violence: does the breadwinner's gendermatter?

This article studies the effect on the risk of female victimization of the employment status of the woman and her partner. We use individual-level data from the violence against women surveys for Spain, which also provide information on income and a rich set of sociodemographic characteristics. To address the potential endogeneity of the binary employment indicators, weexploit exogenous geographical information on the employment and unemployment rates by gender and age, within a multivariate probit framework. Our estimation results show that male partner employment plays a major role in the risk of physical violence, while female employmentonly lowers it when her partner is employed too. The lowest risk appears for more egalitarian couples in which both partners are employed.Research funding from the Ministry of Finance and Competitiveness, Grant Nos. ECO2015-65204-P, MDM2014-0431, and Comunidad de Madrid, Grant No. MadEco-CM (S2015/HUM-3444), is gratefully acknowledged