Domestic violence and women labor market accessibility: The empirical evidence of Cambodia

Abstract

While there have been empirical support for women to join in labor force market in order to improve gender equality and social economic development, the empirical study of its spillover effect on the household conflict is still not so many observe and ambiguous. The negative effect of household conflict is strongly on the economic development as it pay with high cost of health care as well as future generation in both education and health care. In Cambodia, the rate of domestic violence is dramatically increasing.

Using cross sectional data from DHS of Cambodia 2014. Observation from the raw data is 4, 307, however, the valid data that can be analyze is only 2,723 observations. Firstly, the OLS and binary probit model are used to estimate. To grab the potential of edogeneity problem between DV and Women employment, 2SLS is applied. Test shows that these two variables are endogenous variable. Base on the data experimental testing women currently breast-feeding can be used as an instrumental variable for the women’s employment status.

Because endogeneity issue ensue, OLS and Probit estimation is biased and inconsistency. The result of 2SLS is contrast to the previous methodology. That is the women employment in labor market has no effect on the domestic violence. Education’s women play crucial role on reduce the incident of domestic violence. Poverty in both household and community level are positively effect on DV. Husband alcohol consumption is robust positive on DV. More additional number of children in household, DV increase by 1.6 % on average, given others variables constant. The evidence also found that the violence transmit from one generation to next generation.