Home Domestic Violence, Labor Market, and Minimum Wage: Theory and Evidence
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Domestic Violence, Labor Market, and Minimum Wage: Theory and Evidence

  • Carlos Chavez ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 7, 2023

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of minimum wage on domestic violence, considering employment status of both the woman and her partner, as well as formal or informal employment. The study focuses on physical, sexual, and psychological violence, proposing two channels: the woman’s channel based on economic dependence theory, and the partner channel based on theories of financial stress and relative resources. Various empirical strategies, including cross-sectional regression, diff-in-diff, and triple difference, are employed using data from the demographic and family health survey. The findings indicate that increasing the minimum wage reduces domestic violence against women, considering direct effects and the influence of both the woman and her partner. Despite concerns about the informal labor market in Peru and the benefits of minimum wage, this research suggests positive societal effects such as reduced domestic violence.

JEL Classification: J12; E24; E26

Corresponding author: Carlos Chavez, Research Associate, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru, E-mail:

  1. Research funding: Not applicable.

  2. Ethics approval and consent to participate: Not applicable.

  3. Consent for publication: The author declare that he gives consent for publication.

  4. Data availability statement: The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

  5. Conflict of interest: The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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Received: 2023-02-06
Accepted: 2023-08-29
Published Online: 2023-11-07
Published in Print: 2023-11-27

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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