VoxDev Development Economics S6 Ep47: Intimate partner violence: Causes, costs and prevention
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Nov 26, 2025 Manisha Shah, an economist and professor at UC Berkeley specializing in intimate partner violence (IPV), discusses the complexities of measuring and preventing IPV. She reveals that about one in three women experience IPV globally, with heightened prevalence in certain regions. Shah highlights the economic costs of IPV, estimated at 1-2% of GDP, and analyzes how poverty and social norms contribute to its persistence. She also emphasizes the importance of engaging men in prevention strategies and the need for cost-effective interventions like counseling.
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Global Scale Of Intimate Partner Violence
- About one in three partnered women (15–49) experience physical or sexual IPV in their lifetime globally.
- Including emotional abuse raises prevalence to as high as 55–60% in some places.
Recent Growth In Economic Research
- The economics literature on IPV with causal designs is recent and rapidly growing.
- About 92% of the reviewed causal econ papers are from 2015 or later.
Measurement Problems Skew IPV Data
- Self-reported IPV data often undercounts true incidence due to stigma and fear of retaliation.
- Changes in reporting norms can make incidence trends hard to interpret over time or across contexts.