Women's socioeconomic status and attitudes toward intimate partner violence in Eswatini: A multilevel analysis.

Abstract

IntroductionAttitudes supportive of spousal violence retards developmental efforts worldwide, and in particular in patriarchal African settings. It is important to curb this behavior by designing preventative evidence-based policies. This study examines the acceptance of intimate partner violence among women residing in Eswatini and determines whether attitudes supportive of intimate partner violence are associated with women's low socioeconomic status both at the individual- and community-level.MethodsCross-sectional secondary data from two Eswatini Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) conducted in 2010 and 2014 with representative samples of 4,686 and 4,761 women, respectively were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multilevel (random effect) logistic regressions.ResultsOverall, the prevalence of acceptance of intimate partner violence declined significantly between 2010 and 2014 in Eswatini (29.0% vs. 19.8%, pConclusionsSecondary or higher education for individual women and a high proportion of women in the community with low socioeconomic disadvantage are important socioeconomic predictors of reducing women's supportive attitudes toward intimate partner violence. Therefore, further gains in non-supportive attitudes toward acceptance of intimate partner violence could be achieved through efforts and intervention in the education of individual women and improving women's socioeconomic status in the community.