Factors Associated with Attitude towards Wife-Beating among Married Women of the Reproductive Ages in Arba Minch Town, Southern Ethiopia: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Evidence from demographic and health surveys in various countries and Ethiopia too showed that more women are generally believed to justify intimate partner violence (IPV) than men do. An attitude that justifies IPV is one of the factors affecting victimization and perpetration from IPV. However, women’s justification about the violence and factors affecting the justification are not well documented, particularly by addressing household factors such as household food conditions. Therefore, the present study aims to fill this gap among married women of childbearing age so that evidence can be drawn for holistic interventions. A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 696 currently married women of childbearing age (15–49) by using a multistage cluster sampling technique to obtain the women from 11 kebeles (the smallest administrative unit in the government structure of Ethiopia) of Arba Minch town, Southern Ethiopia. Data were collected using a pretested and structured questionnaire. Logistic regression was performed using IBM SPSS version 20. The odds ratio with its 95% confidence interval was used to show the degree of association between the outcome variable and explanatory variables. Nearly two-thirds (59.5%) of the study women justified wife-beating in at least one of the five conditions. A higher odds of justification of wife-beating was observed among women whose marriage was arranged by any other person than the couples themselves, from food-insecure households, with a family size of 5 and above, in the age group of 30–39 years, and whose partner was in the age range of 31–39 years. In contrast, lower odds of justification of wife-beating was observed among women having an age difference of 10 or more years with their partner and those in a household wealth index of middle and higher category. Despite great efforts in realizing gender equality in the country, a higher proportion of women were having the attitude that justifies wife-beating in the five conditions specified to them. Interventions targeting the improvement of women’s attitude towards wife-beating should target against the traditional norms of arranged marriage, improve household food conditions, and decrease family size.