Is a woman less likely to suffer domestic violence if she is educated? With respect to household-level determinants of domestic violence, one of the most commonly identified relationships is an inverse association between the education level of women and the reported violence. The author of this article emphasises that education is not the only influence on gender-based violence (GBV). This paper investigates possible links between GBV and nomadic pastoralism, which is common in many parts of the world, including Africa.
This paper studies domestic violence against against women (VAW) in 33 poor countries, using household survey data from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and the Work, Attitudes and Spending (WAS) survey. The latter of these is a Nigerian national survey of urban and rural households. This paper used information from WAS surveys from 2003 and 2005.
In most countries studied, education clearly reduces the risk of violence; however, education appears to have much less effect on the risk of violence in some African countries: Nigeria, Zambia, Cameroon and Liberia. For these four countries, this paper investigates whether ethnic differences could have confused the picture, concealing the beneficial effects of education.
This study confirms that, in some countries, there is a complicated link between education and GBV risk. However, the author also suggests that ethnic differences sometimes conceal the effects of education on GBV. The apparent lack of education impacts may be clarified by studying different ethnic groups separately. It is not obvious why these ethnic groups differ; however, female seclusion and nomadic cattle farming seem relevant to GBV prevalence rates varying between ethnic groups.