Domestic Violence in Developing Countries: Theory and Evidence

This paper sets out a simple non-cooperative model of household bargaining that incorporates domestic violence as an instrument for enhancing bargaining power over household resource allocation. We demonstrate that the extent of domestic violence faced by women is not necessarily declining in their outside options, nor necessarily increasing in their spouses’. Using the National Family Health Survey data of India for 1998-99, we provide some evidence for the evolutionary theory of domestic violence, which argues that such violence stems from the jealousy caused by paternity uncertainty in our evolutionary past.