10.an evidenced-based approach to a theoretical understanding of the relationship between economic...

7/31/2019 10.An Evidenced-Based Approach to a Theoretical Understanding of the Relationship Between Economic Resources, Race/Ethnicity, and Woman Abuse Ka

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An Evidenced-Based Approachto a Theoretical Understanding

of the RelationshipBetween Economic Resources,

Race/Ethnicity, and Woman Abuse

Kameri Christy-McMullin, PhD

ABSTRACT.Within the context of advocating for evidence-based prac-tice in the field of social work, the need also exists to test or systematicallyreview studies that support or refute theories used in social work practice.The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic review of domesticand international studies that examine the relationship between economicresources, race and ethnicity, and woman abuse. Findings of these studiesareconnected to their implicationsfor exchange, feminist andasset-build-ing theories. Lamentably, few studies include race or ethnicity. While theuse of divergent measures for economic resources and woman abuse re-sult in mixed findings, one consistent finding is that economic assets are

negatively related to woman abuse. [Article copies available for a fee fromThe Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS.Woman abuse, economic resources, race

Kameri Christy-McMullin is affiliated with the School of Social Work, University ofArkansas, 106 ASUP, Fayetteville, AR 72701 (E-mail: [email protected]).

Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work, Vol. 3(2) 2006Available online at http://www.haworthpress.com/web/JEBSW

2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1300/J394v03n02_01 1
mailto:[email protected]://www.haworthpress.com/mailto:[email protected]://www.haworthpress.com/web/JEBSWhttp://www.haworthpress.com/web/JEBSWmailto:[email protected]://www.haworthpress.com/mailto:[email protected]


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The need for women to achieve economic security or independence,and in turn be able to leave an abusive relationship, is a theme com-monly found in the literature on woman abuse (Davis, 1991; Davis &Hagen, 1992; Kurz, 1998; Gondolf, 1988; Shepard & Pence, 1988).Feminists conceptually build on this premise to hypothesize that eco-nomic resources are so important because they bestow women withmore power both within their relationship and in society (Dobash &Dobash, 1979; Levinson, 1989; Peterson, 1980; Shepard & Pence,1988). Exchange theorists also make a conceptual connection betweenhaving resources or power and freedom from woman abuse (Gelles,1982). However, an inherent limitation of both feminist and exchange

theorists is their tendency to conceptualize economic resources too nar-rowly.Asset-building theory adds a potentiallycrucial dimension to theway in which we think about economic resources or status (Conley,1999; Oliver & Shapiro, 1995; Sherraden, 1991). This paper systemati-cally reviews studies that examine the complex relationship betweeneconomicresources, race/ethnicity, and woman abuse in order to evalu-ate the appropriateness of using feminist-exchange and asset-buildingtheories to increase our understanding of woman abuse.

THE ROLE OF POWER IN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS

Feminists assert that violence against woman is a symptom of patri-archy and theorize that men use assorted tactics of abuse to obtain andkeep power/dominance over women (Davis & Hagen, 1992; Dobash &Dobash, 1979; Koss, Goodman, Browne, Fitzgerald, Keita, & Russo,1994; Yllo, 1993). One method of acquiring additional power within arelationship is to have more access to and control over financial re-sources than the other person. In this country, economic and socialstructures have historically made women more vulnerable to economicinequities (Davis & Hagen, 1992; McCue, 1995), with women of colorbeing the most at risk (Abramovitz, 1996). Drawing from feminist ex-change theory, Riger and Krieglstein (2000) contend:

husbands with more marital power than their wives can afford to

beabusive . . . menuse violenceas a means ofcontrol because theycan get away with it; women have too few resources to affect thebalance of power in the relationship. (p. 636)

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This has led some womens advocates to predict that increasingwomens independent economic security will result in a decrease inwoman abuse because their partners will have more to lose economi-cally if they use to violence (Farmer & Tiefenthaler, 1997; Riger &Krieglstein, 2000). On the other hand, there is concern that if womenhave their own economic resources, menmightbecome more abusive inan attempt to maintain their dominance over women (Kalmuss &Straus, 1982; Riger & Krieglstein, 2000; Stout, 1992). This phenome-non is often referred to as the backlash hypothesis (Avakame, 1999;Riger & Krieglstein, 2000).

INCLUDING RACE/ETHNICITYIN OUR CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Historic economic and political oppression faced by members ofvarious racial and ethnic groups, as well as the close relationshipbetween economic resources and woman abuse, highlight the im-portance of including race/ethnicity in the conceptual frameworkregarding woman abuse. However, perhaps in an attempt to obtainpublic support for the problem of woman abuse, feminists have typ-ically amalgamated all women together (Crenshaw, 1994; Kanuha,1996). For example, it has been commonly asserted that all womenare vulnerable to woman abuse, regardless of socioeconomic sta-tus, race, ethnicity, age, religious background or sexual orientation

(Crenshaw, 1994; Kanuha, 1996). Consequently, white, middle-in-come, heterosexual women have become the reference group; withthe unique experiences of women outside this group remaining rel-atively unexamined (Ho, 1990; Kanuha, 1996). Additionally, dueto the oppression marginalized groups have endured, some womenfrom these communities remain silent regarding their experiencesof abuse, due to feelings of being unsafe (Allen, 1982; Crenshaw,1994; Ginorio & Reno, 1986; White, 1986) or of being disloyal totheir community (Crenshaw, 1994; Richie, 1987; White, 1986).

In light of these barriers, Kanuha (1996, p. 35) notes, often dis-cussed but never well-elucidated, analyses of domestic violence in therelationships of women and men of color have been disappointinglymeager. Given these gaps in theory and research, scholars need to

move beyond a superficial examination of comparative data betweendifferent racial and ethnic groups (Lockhart, 1985). In regards to eco-nomic resources, it may not be adequate to perfunctorily state that

Kameri Christy-McMullin 3


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woman abuse is more common among women of color than it is forWhite women because as a group, have lower income and less presti-gious jobs than Euroamericans have. A deeper examination may alsoreveal that economic measures do not benefit or affect minority womenin the same way as they do White ones. Any conceptual frameworkaboutwoman abuseneeds to include an explanation about theshared ef-fects of race/ethnicity and economic resources.

CONCEPTUALIZATING ECONOMIC RESOURCES

When conceptualizing social class or socioeconomic status, by and

large, social scientists have reliedon the measures of income, educationand/or employment (Conley, 1999). While poverty theorists and re-searchers in the United States has focused almost exclusively on in-come, Sherraden (1991) observes that very little theorizing has actuallybeen done to justify the use of income as the measure of economic wel-fare. However, in the past decade, a few scholars have sought tobroaden our thinking about economic status by including measures ofwealth, or economic assets (e.g.,Conley, 1999;Oliver& Shapiro, 1995;Sherraden, 1991).

Sherraden (1991) theorizes that economic assets may have socialbenefits and outcomes separate from, or in addition to, the more tradi-tional measures of economic resources. He hypothesizes that assetsimprove household stability; connect people with a viable, hopeful

future; stimulate development of human and other capital; enable peo-ple to focus and specialize; provide a foundation for risk taking; yieldpersonal, social, andpoliticaldividends; andenhance thewelfare of off-spring (p. 148). Given the recent formulation of asset-building theory,Sherraden acknowledges that there is a need to test the extent to whicheach proposition is true, andunder what circumstances, andpossible in-terrelationships among the propositions (p. 148). Within the past twodecades, researchers have begun to explore the relationship of assets tosuch measures of well-being as physical health (Robert & House,1996), stress (Rocha, 1994), life satisfaction and perceived self-esteem(Roche & Stegman, 1994), civic involvement in neighborhood associa-tions (Perkins, Florin, Rich, Wandersman, & Chavis, 1990), commu-nity volunteerism (Thompson, 1993), wife abuse (Levinson, 1989;

Peterson, 1980), womens social status (Noponen, 1992), education at-tainment of children (Green & White, 1997; Hill & Duncan, 1987), andteen pregnancy(Green& White, 1997). However, it is important to con-



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duct additional research to explore whether these propositions are truefor specific groups of people, especially those that are most vulnerablesocially, economically, and politically.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

This paper critiques sixteen quantitative inquiries that explore the re-lationship between woman abuse andeconomic resources (see Table 1).In order to be included in this review, the studies were required to haveat least one measure for both economic resources and woman abuse. Itwould have been preferable to also have included race/ethnicity as one

of thecriteria for inclusion; this wouldhave severely limited thenumberof articles available for review. Additionally, studies examining the re-lationship between economic assets and woman abuse were purpos-ively included in this review of existing research in order to assessSherradens (1991) theory that asset building is related to social well-being (e.g., safety from woman abuse).

Research on Economic Resources and Femicide

Two of the studies examined the relationship between economic re-sources and the most serious type of woman abuse; the murder of awoman by a current or former intimate male partner (Avakame, 1999;Stout, 1992). Both studies also explored macro-level, as well as mi-

cro-level economic variables.

Avakame (1999)

Avakame (1999) analyzed data from the 1990-1994 SupplementalHomicide Reports (N = 6,533). The independent variable, economic re-sources, is operationalized as percent of females active in the civilianworkforce and economic deprivation (proportion of families earningless than $15,000 in 1989). Femicide is measured as the murder of awife, common-law-wife, girlfriend, or ex-wife by an intimate partner.One of the control variables is race, which is a dichotomous variable(white or minority). The findings from multivariate analyses demon-strate that an increase in the female employment rate, and an increase in

the number of people experiencing economic deprivation are signifi-cantly associated with a decrease in femicide rates (p = .03 and .02, re-spectively). While the results also indicate, minority females are more



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TABLE 1. Summary of the Overall Findings of the Studies Reviewed

Study Measure of Economic Resource(s) Measure(s) of Woman Abuse Statistically S

Avakame, 1999 Percent of females in civilian laborforce; and economic deprivation(proportion of families earning lessthan $15,000 in 1989).

Femicide (women killed by current orformer partners).

Increase in feand in numbeeconomic depassociated wi

Farmer &Tiefenthaler, 1997

Omaha: man working for pay; womanworking for pay; womans educationallevel; level of mans non-wage income;and level of womans non-wage incomeCharlotte:mans monthly earnings;womans monthly earnings; andwhether the woman graduated fromhigh school.

Omaha:number of fights in past 6months resulting in physical injury.Charlotte:number of times in past 6months of physical abuse.

Omaha:men pay, and the lnon-wage increlationship tomens non-wapositive correCharlotte:wohave a negatiphysical abus

Kalmuss &Straus, 1982

Womans economic dependency(womans employment, childrenunder 5, and percent of womensincome to mans).

Physical abuse (minor and severesubscales of the CTS) in the pastyear.

Severe physicrelated to eco

Lambert &Firestone, 2000

Family income; educational level ofboth partners; and occupationalstatus of both partners.

Number of different types of physicalabuse, in the past year (CTS).

Family incomassociation wdifferent types

Levinson, 1989 Economic inequality: inheritancenorms of valuable property;ownership of wealth; ownership of adwelling; & control over thedistribution of material products.

Wife beating: frequency and intensityof physical assaults.

Female contrvariables is nbeating.

McCloskey, 1996 Family income; income disparitybetween the man and woman; totalfamily occupational prestige; anddisparity between the man andwomans occupational prestige.

Woman abuse (verbal aggression &violence subscales of CTS, and onequestion about sexual assault), in thepast year.

As income diswomen increacreases. The occupational the man will a

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Oropesa, 1997 Male and female educationalattainment; number of years of femaleemployment (before and duringmarriage); employment status of bothpartners; national female employmentrate; and female-male employmentratio.

Ever been hit by husband. Negative asswomans edubeing hit; andbetween numemployed afteboth partnersbeing hit.

Page-Adams,1955

Womans educational attainment, em-ployment status, income, andincome in relation to poverty line;household income; savings; andhomeownership.

Marital conflict, ever (either personopenly disagrees, argues heatedly, orshouts); and marital violence, ever(either person hits, throws things, orbecomes physical during an argument).

Controlling foeconomic resincome, homerelated to ma

Peterson, 1980 Male income; male education; maleemployment stability; maleoccupational status; andhomeownership.

Ever been physically abused (hit,slapped, beat, burnt, choked, stabbed,or cut).

Homeownerscorrelated witabused.

Schuler &

Hashemi, 1994

Womens exposure to credit programs

after one year (development of a smallbusiness).

Beaten in the past year. Participation

negatively asbeaten in the

Schuler,Hashemi, Riley& Akhter, 1996

Participation in a credit program;female ever attended school;economic level of household; andwomans financial contribution tohousehold.

Having been beaten in the past year. Both having sparticipating inegatively asbeaten in the

Schwartz, 1990 Employment status of men andwomen.

Battery/physical injury (NCS). Women from women are eare unemployinjury. Employemployed parrisk of injury.

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TABLE 1 (continued)

Study Measure of Economic Resource(s) Measure(s) of Woman Abuse Statistically

Smith, 1990 Family income; educational level ofboth man and woman; occupationalstatus of both partners; andemployment status of both partners.

Any physical abuse, ever; anyphysical abuse in past year; severephysical abuse, ever; and severephysical abuse past year (CTS).

Both family intional level arassociated wabuse (ever aeducational lecorrelated wiever.

Stets & Strauss,1989

Educational level of both partners; andoccupational status of both partners.

Rate of physical violence; and severityof physical assaults (CTS).

Physical violefrequently amthan among w

Stout, 1992 Percent of women employed in

civilian labor force; type of femaleemployment; type of maleemployment; and state laws enactedto protect women in workforce.

Femicide Higher femal

unemploymeship to femiciwhen more wmanagerial oment; and destates with prfemale emplo

Straus, 1994 3 subscales of the Gender EqualityIndex (economic, political, and legal);and income inequality between menand women at the state level(Gini index).

Any physical abuse (CTS), in the pastyear.

GEI is negatiphysical abus

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likely to be killed than theirWhitecounterparts (p.283), analyses werenot conducted to test for an interaction between minoritystatusandeco-nomic resources.

There are several concerns about the variables used in this inquiry tomeasure economic resources. Not only does Avakame (1999) use justtwo indicators of economic resources, it is notclear why labor force par-ticipation is limited only to those in civilian employment. The selectionof a dichotomous variable for economic deprivation, rather than using aricher (perhaps continuous) variable of family income is also a limita-tion. Lastly, creating a variable of economic deprivation based solelyonfamily income is counter to the more common method of includingbothfamily size and household income when measuring poverty. Given the

seemingly contradictory findings regarding female workforce partici-pation and economic deprivation, using these findings to expand ourconceptual framework regarding the relationship between a specifictype of womanabuse, femicide, andeconomicresources is problematic.These conflicting results may be due, in part, to the use of somewhat ar-bitrary and limited criteria to operationalize economic measures.

Stout (1992)

In a study drawing upon an ecological framework, Stout (1992) con-ducted a secondarydata analysisof statewidedata from 1980-1982 (N =50). The average rate of women whose deaths were classified as mur-der or non-negligent manslaughter and who were killed by male inti-

mate partners (p. 34) is the dependent variable. It is likely that thisstudy includes more women killed by an intimate partner than does theAvakame (1999) study, since Stout includes non-negligent manslaugh-ter in her data set. However, a limitation of this inquiry is the lack of alist of all of the independent variables.

Stout (1992) reports that the economic variables of women being em-ployed in the civilian workforce (p = .8) and percent of women em-ployed in professional and technical occupations, compared to men inthose positions (p = .2), are not significantly correlated with femicide.The findings suggest that when women are disproportionately unem-ployed, relative to men, there is an associated increase in the femiciderate (p = .02, r2 = .11). There is also a relationship between an increasein the femicide rate and a higher percent of women than men being em-

ployed in managerial and administrative positions (p = .02, r2 = .11).Other significant finding of this study include a negative correlation be-tween femicide and states having fair employment laws (p = .0005),



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equal pay laws (p = .0001), and laws against sexual discrimination inthe area of housing (p = .02). Bivariate analysis of race (white or black)and femicide indicate that black women are disproportionately repre-sented, comprising 37 percent of the women who were killed by an inti-mate partner. Information regarding other races or ethnic groups wasnot provided. Additionally, Stout did not test for an interaction betweenrace/ethnicity and economic resources in relation to femicide.

This study is useful because numerous measures of economic re-sources were included, many of which pertain to macro or structuralvariables. Inclusion of these macro-level variables allowed for a com-parison of femicide rates between those states that have enacted variouseconomic/political interventions with those that have notdone so.How-

ever, total reliance on bivariate analyses yields less fruitful informationthan could be gainedif multivariate analyses hadbeen conducted. Addi-tionally, including the Pearsons Product Coefficient for the structuralvariables would have allowed the calculation of the effect size of thosevariables in relation to femicide.

Research on Economic Resources and International Studies

While it is questionable whether or not the findings of this body of re-search can be generalized to poor women in this country, these studiesare included because few domestic studies have tested for the relation-ship between economic assets and woman abuse. Therefore, these stud-

ies were included to demonstrate that the research being conducted inother countries operationalize a broader conceptualization of economicresources. These findings may assist scholars in the U.S. to more fullyunderstand the relationship between economic resources and womanabuse. These international studies may also provide important directionfor future innovative research in the U.S.

Schuler and Hashemi (1994)

In a Bangladeshi study,Schuler andHashemi (1994) analyzed ethno-graphic data from a large randomly selected sample of 1,305 rural, mar-ried Bangladeshi women who were interviewed in 1991 and again 18months later.Theauthors randomly selected women from four different

samples: women participating in the Grameen Bank program, womenparticipating in the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC)program, women living in villages served by Grameen but who did not



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participate in the program (comparison group I), and women who livedin villages that were not served by either program (comparison groupII). While programming for both the Grameen Bank and BRAC are verysimilar, unlike the Grameen Bank, BRAC targets all eligible residents(the landless poor) from entire villages. Additionally, the GrameenBank tends to enroll fewer women, recruits a slightly more well off se-lection of the very poor and uses a more structured format for its meet-ings. Participation or not in a credit program was the independentvariable of interest, and the dependent variable of interest was whetherthe woman had been beaten in the past year.

The authors found that after the credit programs had been running forone year, women in both comparison groups I and II reported havingbeen beaten 1.4 and 1.8 times more often in that past year than womenin the BRAC programs and 2.3 and 3 times more often than women par-ticipating in the Grameen programs. A more sophisticated analysis ofthe data on woman abuse and economic resources was not conducted.While the authors conceptualized the independent variable as womensexposure to credit programs, this may be misleading. It may actuallybe the accumulation of small, independent business assets that helpstrengthen womens economic roles (Schuler & Hashemi, 1994), andhelp explain the decrease in physical abuse.

While the quasi-experimental design attempts to provide this inquirywith more internal validity, the lack of baseline data makes it difficult toassess if these differences existed among the four groups prior to the in-

tervention. However, the researchers include women from villagesserved by the Grameen Bank, but who do not participate in the program(comparison group I) to address internal validity concerns about non-participants inadvertently benefiting from the effects of an intervention.Given that the women in the Grameen Bank program experienced lessphysical abuse than women participating in the other credit program, itmay be that the differences in the programs themselves explain at leastpart of the variation in the abuse rates. In addition to using an asset mea-sure in the conceptualization of economic resources, another potentialstrength of this inquiry is the use of data collectors who were ethno-graphers. These researchers lived in the villages for an extended periodof time, which may have increased the likelihood that the women re-

ported whether they had been beaten, and thereby decreased the occur-rence of underreporting that is problematic in most studies of womanabuse.



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Schuler, Hashemi, Riley, and Akhter (1996)

In another Bangladeshi study, Schuler and her colleagues (1996)re-examine their earlier data to specifically test for the relationship be-tween participatingin credit programs (independent variable) and phys-ical abuse (dependent variable). Other independent variables include:whether the woman ever attended school, economic level of the house-hold, and the womans financial contribution to the household. Thefindings indicate that women with some schooling are about 30 percentless likely to have been beaten than women who had no schooling. Theauthors also found that, women who participate in either GrameenBank or BRAC are less likely to be beaten by their husbands than

women in villages without credit programs (p. 1737). Neither the eco-nomic level of the household nor the womans financial contribution tothe support of the family were significantly related to physical abuse.As with the earlier study (Schuler & Hashemi, 1994), this inquiry mea-sured woman abuse in a very limited way, using only the indicator ofwhether a woman was beaten in the past year. A final limitation withboth studies is that selection bias might explain the differences in abuserates among the different groups of women. It may be that women whoexperience less physical abuse are more likely to join a credit programto start their own small business.

Levinson (1989)

From the field of cultural anthropology, Levinsons (1989) world-wide comparative study of 90 small-scale and peasant societies ex-amined the broad phenomenon of family violence. Wife beating wasoperationalized as frequency and intensity of physical assaults. Theresults indicated that each of the four asset-based indicators had astatistically significant (at the .05 level or less), but weak relation-ship to wife beating. The results for these variables were: inheritancenorms of valuable property favors females (Spearmans rho = .12),women owning their own independent wealth (Spearmans rho =.21), female ownership of a dwelling (Spearmans rho = .22), and fe-male control over the distribution of monetary/material products(Spearmans rho = .25). Of the social structural variables, the onlypredictor of wife beating was whether women participate in exclu-

sively female work groups (Spearmans rho = .3). Levinson hypothe-sized that this finding was a result of the social support and economicindependence that membership in these groups provide women.



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One of the unique contributions this study made to the professionalliterature was the use of four asset measures and collection of data re-garding womens independent assets. As with Stouts (1992) inquiry,this study examined macro-level data and demonstrated that societies/communities with structural supports for womens economic securityare also less likely to practice physical abuse of women. Anotherstrength was that intercoder reliability for the four asset and one wifebeating measures ranged from 73 to 94 percent agreement. Levinsonalso utilized Spearmans rho coefficients to demonstrate the degree towhich two variables were related. However, as with the other two inter-national studies, physical abuse was operationalized narrowly, encom-passing only the most severe types of abuse.

Oropesa (1997)

Oropesa (1997) analyzed data from a 1992 national survey in Mex-ico. A multistage probability sampling procedure was used to survey 60localities, resulting in a sampleof 794 married andcohabiting women inMexico. The dependent variable was measured by the question Hasyour husband or partner ever hit you? (p. 1299). Approximately 19percent of thewomen reported ever being hit. Educationalattainment ofthe woman, the disparity in education attainment between the partners,number of years the woman has been employed both before and duringthe relationship, the employment status of both partners, the employ-ment rate for women in the county, and the female-male employment

ratio were among the independent variables used in this inquiry.The findings suggested a negative relationship between a womans

educational attainment and being hit, a positive relationship betweenthe number of years a woman was employed after being in the relation-ship and being hit, and both partners being unemployed and being hit.There was no significant relationship between the other economic vari-ables and being hit. The author concluded, The risk of violence is af-fectedless by thecreation of dual-earner families than by thecreation ofno-earner families (Oropesa, 1997, p. 1312).

Limitations included the exclusion of never married, separated, anddivorced women and the use of only one indicator for woman abuse.Additionally, there is a fallacy in asking if a woman has ever been hitand then trying to relate that to the level of her current economic re-

sources (or those of the county in which she resides). For instance, awoman may be currently employed but she may have been hit 3 yearsago, when she was unemployed.However, this distinction cannotbe as-



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certained from the data, resulting in the findings indicating women whohave been hit are also employed.

Research on Economic Resourcesand Non-Standardized Measures of Woman Abuse

The following research articles are grouped together because theyexamined the relationship between economic resources and physicalabuse of women by an intimate partner. However, a commonality ofthese inquiries is their use of a single indicator, and/ornon-standardizedmeasures in the operationalization of physical abuse.

Peterson (1980)

Petersons (1980) study was groundbreaking in that it appears to bethe earliest inquiry that includes an asset measure (homeownership) inoperationalizing economic resources. He collected data via a telephonesurvey in 1977 and 1978 of 602 randomly selected married, divorced orcohabiting women in the state of Maryland. The relationship between awoman having ever been abused (hit, slapped, beat, burnt, choked,stabbed, or cut) and the economic resources of the household (home-ownership, and the mans income, education, occupation, and employ-ment stability) were analyzed in this inquiry.

When reviewing the findings, Peterson asserted that all five of theeconomic measures were related to woman abuse. One problem with

his assertion is that of the five economic measures, only homeowner-ship was significantly related to ever being abused (x2 = 39.33, p =.001). Furthermore, Peterson stated, women who rent report an inci-dent of ever being abused that is nine times greater than that reported bythose who own their own homes (p. 398). However, the numbers pro-vided in the findings tables report that 19 homeowners and 32 rentersreported abuse, indicating that renters are 1.7 times more likely thanhomeowners to report being abused. Additionally, multivariate analy-ses were not conducted in order to test for the effects of one variable(e.g., income) on another variable (e.g., homeownership).

Much like Oropesas study (1997), another shortcoming of this studyis that Petersons (1980) measurement of physical abuse renders thesefindings very suspect. While a woman was asked whether she had ever

been abused by her husband, she was asked about their currenthousingstatus (as well as current employment, income, etc). So, a woman mayhave been physically abused 5 years earlier (when the couple rented



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their housing), but at the time of the interview they were homeowners.This would result in a misrepresentation of the findings; the couple isclassified as homeowners with the woman being abused, when theyshould be classified as renters with the woman being abused.

Schwartz (1990)

Using data from the National Crime Survey (NCS), Schwartz (1990)explores whether the relationship between the employment status ofwomen and men, and experiences of battery and physical injury. Hecompared the data among three subsamples of women; those who wereabused/injured by either a spouse or ex-spouse (N = 667), women who

reported abuse/injury by a stranger (N = 832), and women who reportedexperiencing no abuse/injury during the same time frame (N = 850). Itshould be noted that Schwartz did not explicitly state the size of eachsubsample; the numbers provided here are estimates.

The findings indicated that the vast majority of men who batter theircurrent or former wives are currently employed; only eight percent areunemployed. However, women abused by their partners are more likelyto be unemployed. While this difference is significant (p = .0001), theeffect is weak (Cramers V = .155). As for injury, 40 percent of thewomen who were thesole breadwinner reported receivingmedical care,as compared to 19 percent of women whose husbands were the solebreadwinnerand21 percent of thewomen who lived in households withtwo breadwinners (p = .02, Cramers V = .173). A potentially con-

founding issue with the last finding is that women who are sole bread-winners may in fact be separated or divorced from their partners.However, Schwartz did not control for marital status in the data analy-ses.

One of the main limitations of this study is its brevity. Consequently,much of the relevant information, such as how battery is operational-ized, was lacking. It appears that injury was operationalized as whetherthe woman soughtmedical treatment. Since notallwomen seek medicalcare after being abused, this will result in an underreporting of injuries.There are numerous questions in the NCS that ask about different typesof physical abuse and injury, but Schwartz did not specify which oneshe used forhisanalyses.Additionally, information regardingtheyear oryears of data collection, and how duplicated observances were handled

was not provided. A final limitation is the lack of attention that wasgiven to the possible interaction between race/ethnicity and economicresources.



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Page-Adams (1995)

Page-Adams (1995) conducteda secondary data analysiswith a largesubsample (N = 2,827) from the National Survey of Families andHouseholds (NSFH, 1986).The NSFH researchers employed randomsampling in obtaining both male and female respondents, and collecteddata via face-to face interviews. The variable of martial conflict wasoperationalized by two indicators; the respondents were asked whetherthey ever argue heatedly or shout at each other during disagree-ments (p. 36), and whether they ever openly disagreed with each re-garding household tasks, money, spending time together, sex, havinga(nother) child, in-laws, or the children. Marital violence is measured

by twoindicators; whether the coupleever hits or throws things during adisagreement, andwhether either partner hadbecome physical duringan argument. In addition to the more traditional measures for economicresources (highest level of education completed by the woman, womansemployment status, womans income, womans income in relation tothe federal poverty line, and household income), two asset measures(savings and homeownership) were also included in the operationaliza-tion of economic resources.

The large sample size allowed for multivariate analysis to be run,thereby statistically controlling for the effects of one variable (e.g., in-come) on another (e.g., savings). Page-Adams (1995) reported, theonly economic resource that has a consistently negative effect on mari-tal violence is household assets in the form of homeownership (p. 93).

This result held true even when controlling for the effects of householdincome and the womans independent economic resources. Addition-ally, none of the economicmeasures hadsignificant effects on such vio-lence when controlling for the effects of homeownership.

A significant limitation of this study is that the dependent variablesare marital conflict and marital violence. It is not possible to differ-entiate between male and female victims in this study. Consequently,the findings are not generalizable to women who experience abuse byan intimate partner, but only to couples who report experiencing con-flict and/or violence.

Farmer and Tiefenthaler (1997)

In an article by Farmer and Tiefenthaler (1997), data were collectedfrom police call responses in Omaha, Nebraska from 1986-1987 (N =560 observations) and from the Charlotte (North Carolina)Spouse Rep-



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(Straus & Gelles, 1990). The CTS is a 19-item scale that falls intothree general modes of behaviors used to settle differences: Reason-ing (rational discussion), Verbal Aggression (verbal or nonverbal actsthat symbolically hurt another), and Violence (physical aggression). Attimes, Straus and others have divided the Violence subscale into (1) mi-nor and severe violence (Kalmuss & Straus, 1982; Stets & Straus,1989) or (2) ordinary and severe violence (Straus, 1990c). These19 items are asked in a hierarchical order of less severe behaviors tomost severe behaviors (Straus, 1990a).

Theinternal reliability of this instrumentis reported to range from .83to .88 for husband-to-wife violence (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz,1988). The main strength of the CTS is its use of a Guttman-type scale,

whichorders thequestions from the least to most aggressive acts. Theo-retically, this increases the rapport between the researcher and partici-pant; thereby increasing the likelihood that the respondent will answertruthfully (Straus et al., 1988). The use of specific terminology, such asslapped or hit with an object, rather than vague terms, such asabuse or violence may also help respondents know what kinds ofbehavior the researchers are interested in; thereby increasing the valid-ity of the scale. However, it can also be argued that if the behavior(s) thewoman has experienced is (are) not part of the questionnaire, she maynot report that she has been abused.

Feminists have seriously questioned thevalidityof theCTS. The the-oretical premise of the CTS is that conflict exists in all social units, in-cluding the family, and violence or aggression occurs in attempts to

resolve those conflicts (Kalmuss & Straus, 1982; Straus, 1990a; Strauset al., 1988). The purpose of this scale is to measure violence in thefamily by asking about the means used to resolve conflicts of interestamong family members (Straus et al., 1988, p. 26). This alleged abilityto broadly apply the CTS to all types of family violence and to allfamily members is one of the criticisms raised by feminists (Dobash &Dobash, 1982). They contend that conflict and personal interests occuralong lines of gender and generational entitlement (Yllo, 1990, p. 52).Therefore, it is inappropriate to conceptualize this process of resolvingconflict as being gender or age neutral.

While the work of Straus and Gelles has been helpful in moving thefocus of woman abuse from individual psychopathology to an examina-tion of social forces that contribute to violence, The patriarchal nature

of these social forces was not adequately incorporated into the theoriesor empirical measures (Yllo, 1990, p. 50). Another concern leviedagainst the CTS is that it dominates the family violence field to an ex-



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tent rarely matched by other scales in the field . . . [and] has beenadopted by a wave of researchers who have never explored,questioned,tested, or often, shared its underlying theoretical assumptions (Yllo,1990, p. 52). Furthermore, neither Straus nor Gelles have ever ex-plained, why violence is best conceptualized as a conflict tactic (Yllo,1990, p. 52). Feminists hypothesize that violence is better conceptual-ized as a tactic men use to maintain their control and power both withinthe relationship (Koss et al., 1994; Kurz, 1990, Yllo, 1990), and withinsociety (Koss et al., 1994). A final problem with the CTS is that Strausand Gelles (1988) have defined violence as an act carried out with theintention, or perceived intention of causing pain or injury to anotherperson (p. 15). However, as noted by Koss and her colleagues (1994,

p. 64), the parameters of those definitions are notmeasured by the CTS(e.g., intent).

Research on Economic Resources and the Use the CTS

The six studies discussed in this section of the research critique allmeasure woman abuse as physical abuse only, and all use the violencesubscale of the CTS. These inquiries demonstrate four differentways inwhich the CTS can be employed in research. In the first three studies,Kalmuss and Straus (1982), Smith (1990), and Stets and Straus (1989)divide the violence subscale into minor or any violence and se-vere violence to explore whether different levels of violence have thesame or divergent association with economic resources. However,

Straus (1994) used the overall violence subscale in his analyses. WhileLambert and Firestone (2000) also used the overall violence subscale,they converted the level of measurement for this dependent variableinto a continuous variable by counting the number of different types ofvictimizations a woman reported having experienced. In a somewhatunique study, McCloskey (1996) expanded the operationalization ofwoman abuse to include not only physical but also verbal and sexualabuse in operationalizing woman abuse. She did this by using both theverbal aggression and violence subscales of the CTS, as well as by add-ing a question regarding sexual assault to the interview instrument.

Minor versus Severe Abuse

Kalmuss and Straus (1982). Using a national area probability sampleof 1,183 married or cohabitating women interviewed in 1976, Kalmussand Straus (1982) examined the relationship between a womans eco-



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nomic dependency and physical abuse (the minor and severe violencesubscalesof the CTS). Economic dependency was indexed by summingthe scores of three dichotomous variables; whether the woman was em-ployed, whether she had children 5 years or younger, and whether herpartner earned 75 percent or more of the familys income. The internalreliability of this index is poor (.59), and severely jeopardizes confi-dence in the findings.

Another limitation is combining all abused women together as beinghomogeneous, rather than testing to see if there might be differencesamong various groups of women (such as age, marital status, or race/ethnicity). The results indicated that while minor violence was not sig-nificantly related to economic dependency (p = .15), severe violence

did have a positive relationship to economic dependency (p = .02). Theauthors suggest, wives who are highly dependent on marriage are lessable to discourage, avoid, or put an end to abuse than are women in mar-riages where the resources between husbands and wives is more nearlyequal (p. 282). However, this conclusion seems premature in that twoof three dimensions (having children age 5 or younger and female em-ployment) used to create the economic dependency index do not mea-sure equal access to resources.

Smith (1990). In a study with Toronto women, Smith (1990) ana-lyzed data collected in 1987 via random digit dialing of 604 currently orformerly married/cohabiting. The formerly married/cohabiting womenhad to have been in a relationship within the past two years to be in-cluded in the survey. The response rate of 56.4 percent is problematic in

that selection bias may influence the results of the analyses.As compared to Kalmuss and Straus (1982), who used two mea-

sures for violence, Smith (1990) operationalized violence as (1) anyabuse, past year, (2) any abuse, ever, (3) severely abused, past year,and (4) severely abused, ever. Smith also used more measures of eco-nomic resources; (1) total family income, (2) highest level of educa-tion completed for both partners, (3) occupational status of bothpartners, and (4) employment status of both partners. The findings ofthese two studies were comparable, in that fewer economic resources(familys income and mans education) seem to be associated morewith severe abuse, regardless of when the abuse occurred. One vari-able (mans education) was negatively related to any abuse, ever (p =.03). Interestingly, none of the other variables, specifically measures

of the womans economic resources, were significant when the multi-variate analyses were conducted. However, a limitation of the resultsof any abuse, ever and severe abuse, ever is the same one experi-



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enced by Peterson (1980) and Oropesa (1997); asking about any his-tory of abuse when the current measures of economic resources arebeing used is likely to yield inaccurate findings.

Stets and Straus (1989). In a study with a slightly different focus,Stets and Straus (1989) tested for the interaction between marital status,economic resources, and violence. Consequently, the authors were pri-marily interested in comparing economicdifferences among dating, co-habiting andmarried couples, rather than testing forpotentialprotectiveeconomicvariables against womanabuse. The data analyzedfor this in-quiry came from two samples. The first was a probability sample ofnon-married students at a large midwestern university (N = 526) in1987.Only students who haddated during1986 were allowed to partici-

pate. The second sample was comprised of married (N = 5,005) and co-habiting (N = 237) couples from the 1985 the National Family ViolenceResurvey.

Theeducation level of both partners was measured categorically, andoccupational status of both partners was operationalized as either blueor white-collar worker. Marital statuswasoperationalized as dating, co-habiting, or married, and violence was operationalized as rate of physi-cal violence and severity of physical assaults. The findings suggestedthat, after controlling for age, education, and occupational status, co-habiting couples have both the highest rate of violence and the most se-vere violence compared to dating or married couples. While violenceoccurred more frequently with blue-collar workers (p = .05), educationwas not significantly related to the rate of violence (Stets & Straus,

1989).One limitation of this study is that the number of cohabiting persons

was extremely small, only fourpercent of the entire sample. Such an un-even distribution of the marital status variable might affect the statisti-cal analyses. Drawing the dating sample from one university is anotherdrawback, in that this greatly limits the generalizability of the findings.A final limitation is that analyses of race and/or ethnicity are noticeablyabsent from this study.

Overall Violence

Straus (1994) study testedtherelationship between theGenderEqual-ity Index (GEI) and incomeinequality of the 50states, and the percentage

of married/cohabiting women who reported experiencing any physicalabuse by her partner within the past 12 months. The data regarding physi-cal abuse were also drawn from the 1985 National Family Violence



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Resurvey. The GEI contains three spheres; economic (comprised ofseven indicators), political (comprised of four indicators), and legal(comprised of 13 indicators). The internal reliability of the GEI was re-ported as being marginal at .65. Income inequality is measured by the1980 Gini index. Control variables included percent of the state popula-tion that wasAfrican American, andtheunemployment rate for thestate.

The author reported that gender equality, as measured by the GEI, isnegatively related to physical violence. However, physical abuse is notsignificantly associated with income inequality. Given the comprehen-siveness of the GEI variable, it is not possible to determine whether spe-cific indicators of the GEI have a stronger relationship to overall physicalabuse. It is difficult to imagine thatall 24 indicators of the GEI are equally

powerful in explaining the variance of physical abuse. Additionally, thelowinternal consistency of theGEI, as with theeconomic dependency in-dex used by Kalmuss and Straus (1982), make the credibility of thesefindings questionable.

Number of Physical Assaults

Lambert and Firestone (2000) also analyzed data from the 1985 Physi-cal Violence in American Families (known also as the 1985 NationalFamily Violence Resurvey). Data were collected from both men (N =413) and women (N = 569) regarding physical male violence against theintimate female partner. The authors hypothesize that it was the numberof different types of physical assaults that was related to various eco-

nomicmeasures (family income, highest level of educationcompletedforboth partners, occupational status of both partners, and disparity betweenboth themanandwomans educationalattainment and their occupationalstatus). Control variables included race (white or black) and ethnicity(Hispanic or non-Hispanic).

The average number of abuses reported by the women was 2.14 and theaverage number reported by the men was 1.75. The findings suggest thatthere is a negative relationship between family income and the total num-ber ofdifferent types ofphysicalabuse reported bywomen (p = .01). How-ever, family income accounted for about only two percent of the variancein the total number of different physical abuses reported by women.

Expanding the Operationalization of Woman Abuse

McCloskey (1996) recruited365 women from domesticviolence andother community agencies to explore the relationship between eco-



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nomic resources and woman abuse. Woman abuse was operationalizedby using both the verbal aggression and violence subscales of the CTSand by adding one question about sexual assault. The number of abusiveincidents was combined to create a 7-point scale, resulting in a Cronbachsalpha for these combined items of .95. The economic variables were(1) total family income, (2) income disparity between the man andwoman, (3) total family occupational prestige, and (4) disparity be-tween the man and womans occupational prestige.

While household income was not significantly related to womanabuse, a woman having more income than her partner was related to in-creased woman abuse (p = .007). Conversely, disparity of occupationalprestige was not significantly associated with women abuse, but lower

combined occupational status of the couple was related to increasedwoman abuse (p = .024).

CONCLUSIONS

Given the wide discrepancies in how economic resources are mea-sured, it is very difficult to extract any overall patterns within the researchreviewed for this article. For example, Smith (1990) and Lambert andFirestone (2000) operationalized income as household or family in-come, while McCloskey examined both independent male and femaleincome, as well as the disparity between the two. An additional barrierto unearthing any general trends is that some studies use only one or

two measures of economic resources (Avakame, 1999; Schwartz,1990). This makes it impossible to know if other economic measureswould have also been statistically significant. Furthermore, somestudies used only bivariate analyses (Levinson, 1989; Peterson, 1980;Schuler & Hashemi, 1994; Stout, 1992), which restrict our ability toknow if one economic measure serves as a proxy for another. Conse-quently, the findings throughout the literature are mixed; income maynot be significantly related to woman abuse in some studies (Page-Ad-ams, 1995; Peterson, 1980), while there is a statistically significant re-lationship between these two variables in other studies (McCloskey,1996; Lambert & Firestone, 2000; Smith, 1990).

However, theoneconsistent finding in the literature is that asset mea-sures have a negative correlation with woman abuse. This holds true,

whether the assets are operationalized as homeownership (Page-Ad-ams, 1995; Peterson, 1980); womens ownership of a small business(Schuler & Hashemi, 1994; Schuler et al., 1996); womens independent



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Sampling

In conjunction with measurement problems, Smith (1990) had theadditional drawback of a poor response rate (56.4 percent). Farmer andTiefenthaler (1997) had two problems pertaining to their sampling de-sign. The first was the probability that there were duplicated obser-vances unaccounted for in the sample. Additionally, generalizability iscompromised by the fact that they drew the samples from residents ofOmaha, Nebraska and Charlotte, North Carolina. Similarly, McCloskeys(1996)use of a non-randomized sampleof women from one geographiclocality significantly restricts the generalizability of her findings.

Research Design and Data Analyses

Since all the studies reviewed are correlational, it is not possible toknow whether higher levels of economic resources cause women to ex-perience less physical abuse or if those women who do not experiencephysical abuse are more likely to accumulate economic resources. Itmay be that other variables, such as age (Gelles & Cornell, 1990) ormarital status, influence both woman abuse and the amount of eco-nomic resources a woman has. However, the use of comparison groupshelps increase theinternal validity of twointernational studies (Schuler&Hashemi, 1994; Schuler et al., 1996). Additionally, exclusive relianceon bivariate analyses (Levinson, 1989; Schuler & Hashemi, 1994;Stout, 1992) provides only a very basic (and perhaps only a partially

correct) understanding of the relationship between the dependent andindependent variables.

IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

The limitations of previous studies, the variation between the inquiriesand the resultingmixed findings makes it problematical to ascertain im-plications for direct and policy practice. However, the consistent, nega-tive correlations between assets and woman abuse suggest that socialworkers need to expand their conceptualization of economic resourcesto include wealth (e.g., savings accounts, homeownership, retirement/pension funds, and small business ownership). Consequently, social

workers need to be educated about and involved in the newly emergingasset-building movement that seeks to assist low-income and low-wealth individuals and families accumulate assets in order to move out



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of poverty. Furthermore, social workers need to ensure that abusedwomen are included in these anti-poverty policies and programs (Christy-McMullin, 2000). Social work involvement includes lobbying for andpromoting increased funding from both the private and public sectors,making appropriate referrals for low-income individuals to asset-build-ing programs, developing asset-building programs that are culturallysensitive and meet the needs of a diverse population, as well as imple-menting and evaluating the outcomes of asset-building programs.

IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Of the domestic studies, two stand out as providing the most guid-ance for future inquires. While her sampling design is a limitation,McCloskey (1996) operationally expanded upon woman abuse to in-clude not only physical, but verbal and sexual assaults as well. This is avery unique characteristic of this study, and the internal reliability ofthese combined items was very high (.95). However, rather than havingone dichotomous indicator for woman abuse, if possible, it would be in-structive to test for relationships between different types of womanabuse and different types of economic resources. She also employedfour measuresof economic resources, although two pertained to incomeand the other two were concerned with occupational prestige.

There are also several strengths in Lambert and Firestones (2000)inquiry. The use of a randomly selected, national study helps increase

confidence in generalizing the findings. The national data set providesa large enough sample to allow for multivariate analyses, which is par-ticularly beneficial when studying the complex relationship betweenwoman abuse, economic resources, and race/ethnicity. Additionally,the operationalization of physical abuse included both minor and se-vere indicators of physical abuse. Not only did the authors use sevenindicators for economic resources, they also controlled for the effectsof race and ethnicity on their findings.

Unfortunately, the findings of the two domestic studies that usedsome type of economic asset measure are tenuous, at best. While the re-sults of the three international studies are more promising, the basic sta-tistical analyses of Levinson (1989), and Schuler and Hashemis (1994)inquiries limit a more comprehensive understanding of the potential rela-

tionships between various economic asset measures and woman abuse.While these international studies suggest that economic assets may alsohave a negative association with woman abuse in this country, there has



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yet to be empirical support for this hypothesis. A final gap in the assetliterature is that the operationalization of woman abuse in each of thefive studies was narrow and somewhat ambiguous.

These limitations highlight the need for future studies that (1) use arandomly selected, national sample, (2) include a variety of measuresfor economic resources, specifically asset measures, (3) include mea-sures for race and/or ethnicity, (4) measure woman abuse more broadlyto include emotional, physical, economic, andsexualabuse, (5) conductmultivariate analyses to control for potential effects of one economicmeasure on another, and (6) test for an interaction between economicresources and race/ethnicity,and womanabuse. In conjunctionwith ex-panding policies and practice to include asset development for abused

women, social workers need to be actively involved in testing the out-comes for abused women in such programs. In order to have a strong,empirical foundation to support or refute feminist-exchange and as-set-building theories, it is imperative that future studies take into con-sideration the above recommendations so that there will be consistencyamong studies. This will facilitate our ability to determine which inter-ventions are most germane for an extremely vulnerable population,women who experience abuse by an intimate partner.

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