Factors Influencing Domestic and Marital Violence against Women in Ghana
Eric Tenkorang, Memorial University
Yaa Owusu, University of Ghana
Eric H. Yeboah, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
Using the most recent version of the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) and employing complementary log-log models, this study examined factors that influence both physical and sexual violence among married women in Ghana. Socio-economic variables (wealth and employment status) that capture feminist explanations of domestic violence were not significantly related to both physical and sexual violence. Education was however, related to physical violence among Ghanaian women. Variables that capture both cultural and life course epistemologies of domestic violence were significantly related to both physical and sexual violence among married women in Ghana. Women who thought wife beating was justified and those who reported higher levels of control by their husbands had higher odds of experiencing physical and sexual violence. Also, compared to those who had not, women who witnessed family violence in the life course were significantly more likely to have experienced both physical and sexual violence.
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Presented in Session 32: Intimate Partner Violence