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Private but Misunderstood? Evidence on Measuring Intimate Partner Violence via Self-Interviewing in Rural Liberia and Malawi

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  • David Sungho Park
  • Shilpa Aggarwal
  • Dahyeon Jeong
  • Naresh Kumar
  • Jonathan Robinson
  • Alan Spearot

Abstract

Women may under-report intimate partner violence (IPV) in surveys due to a variety of social and psychological factors. To understand if anonymized interviewing can allay this concern, we conduct a measurement experiment in rural Liberia and Malawi in which women were asked IPV questions via either self-interviewing (SI) or face-to-face interviewing (FTFI) with an enumerator. We find that about a third of women incorrectly answer basic screening questions over SI, and that it generates placebo effects on innocuous questions even for those who "pass" screening. Because the probability of responding "yes" to any specific IPV question is less than 50%, and that IPV is typically reported as an index (reporting yes to at least one question in a category of violence), such misunderstanding will tend to increase IPV reporting. In Malawi, we find that SI dramatically increases reported IPV, with the incidence of any type of IPV increasing by 13 percentage points on a base of 20%; in Liberia, we find an insignificant and modest increase of 4 percentage points on a base of 39%. Our results suggest SI may spuriously increase reported IPV rates.

Suggested Citation

  • David Sungho Park & Shilpa Aggarwal & Dahyeon Jeong & Naresh Kumar & Jonathan Robinson & Alan Spearot, 2021. "Private but Misunderstood? Evidence on Measuring Intimate Partner Violence via Self-Interviewing in Rural Liberia and Malawi," NBER Working Papers 29584, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29584
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Marc Höglinger & Ben Jann, 2018. "More is not always better: An experimental individual-level validation of the randomized response technique and the crosswise model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-22, August.
    2. Chuang, Erica & Dupas, Pascaline & Huillery, Elise & Seban, Juliette, 2021. "Sex, lies, and measurement: Consistency tests for indirect response survey methods," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    3. Chuang, Erica & Dupas, Pascaline & Huillery, Elise & Seban, Juliette, 2021. "Sex, lies, and measurement: Consistency tests for indirect response survey methods," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    4. Cullen,Claire Alexis, 2020. "Method Matters : Underreporting of Intimate Partner Violence in Nigeria and Rwanda," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9274, The World Bank.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jeong, Dahyeon & Aggarwal, Shilpa & Robinson, Jonathan & Kumar, Naresh & Spearot, Alan & Park, David Sungho, 2023. "Exhaustive or exhausting? Evidence on respondent fatigue in long surveys," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    2. Beam, Emily A., 2023. "Social media as a recruitment and data collection tool: Experimental evidence on the relative effectiveness of web surveys and chatbots," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    3. Assefa, Thomas W. & Kadam, Aditi & Magnan, Nicholas & McCullough, Ellen & McGavock, Tamara, 2022. "Who is asking and how? The effects of enumerator gender and survey method in measuring intimate partner violence," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322543, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Carolina Castilla & David M. A. Murphy, 2023. "Bidirectional intimate partner violence: Evidence from a list experiment in Kenya," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(1), pages 175-193, January.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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