SOCIOECONOMIC AND COERCIVE POWER WITHIN THE FAMILY

Abstract

This study investigates whether couples' income and occupational status covary with wife and child abuse. The author interviewed 365 battered and nonbattered women about different facets of family violence and finances and obtained reports from one of their children about abuse in the home. The author compares the relative influence of overall family resources to resource disparity between women and their partners. Asymmetry in income favoring women, rather than total family income, predicted the men's frequency and severity of abuse toward their wives. Overall combined occupational status of the couple also predicted wife abuse, but disparity in occupations did not. These findings suggest that income disparity rather than overall poverty contributes to wife abuse. Class standing as indexed by membership in lower-status occupations also is a risk factor for wife battering. Fathers or stepfathers who harm women are also more likely to abuse the children, with few effects of income and occupation after partialing out wife abuse. The author suggests that a proportion of these men use the children in a policy of coercion against the mothers. Further gender-based interpretations of economic roles and family dynamics are needed to illuminate the complex reasons for men's abuse of women and children.