DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN INDIA: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

Domestic violence is one of the crimes against women that are linked to their disadvantageous position in the society. Domestic violence refers to violence against women especially in matrimonial homes. Therefore, domestic violence is recognized as the significant barriers of the empowerment of women, with consequences of women's health, their health-seeking behaviour and their adoption of small family norm. However, an attempt has been made to study whether ever-married women of reproductive age group in India view wife beating as justified. In addition, the prevalence of beatings and physical mistreatment since age 15 and also in last one year has been studied. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-II) data, which covered 90,303 ever-married women in the age group of 15-49, is used in the analysis. Background characteristics such as age of women, age at first marriage, marital duration, sex composition of living children, place of residence, level of education, caste, religion, women's autonomy, exposure to mass media, sex of the head of the household, work status of women, standard of living have been considered for the study. An autonomy index is developed to understand the relationship of women's autonomy with domestic violence. Bivariate analysis is used to examine the variation of domestic violence by background characteristics. Logistic regression is carried out to predict the domestic violence with the selected independent variables. The analysis shows that the women belonging to low socio-economic status are more likely to agree with each of the different reasons justifying wife beating. Again, domestic violence is more among lower autonomy and women belonging to low socio-economic status.