IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/11040.html

The Unintended Impacts of an Intimate Partner Violence Prevention Program : Experimental Evidence from Rwanda

Author

Listed:
  • Cullen, Claire
  • Alik Lagrange, Arthur
  • Ngatia, Muthoni
  • Vaillant, Julia

Abstract

This study evaluates the impact of an intimate partner violence prevention program in Rwanda, using a randomized controlled trial. The 22-week couples training program aimed to improve communication, shift gender attitudes, and promote gender equality. Randomizing at both the village and couple levels, the study finds that the program caused large, unexpected increases in intimate partner violence. Treated women reported 5 and 10 percentage points more physical and sexual violence than control women, respectively, and control women living in treated villages reported even larger increases of 11 and 17 percentage points. Evidence suggests that these increases stem from male backlash against perceived identity threats, as women’s more progressive attitudes and aspirations contrast with men’s pressure to maintain traditional norms, generating friction within households. Innovative measurement techniques and extensive robustness checks show that changes in reporting behavior cannot explain the results.

Suggested Citation

  • Cullen, Claire & Alik Lagrange, Arthur & Ngatia, Muthoni & Vaillant, Julia, 2025. "The Unintended Impacts of an Intimate Partner Violence Prevention Program : Experimental Evidence from Rwanda," Policy Research Working Paper Series 11040, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11040
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099402101212522038/pdf/IDU-315e9848-4d58-47e7-b8fc-7902b1f0ac8d.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amy Farmer & Jill Tiefenthaler, 1997. "An Economic Analysis of Domestic Violence," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(3), pages 337-358.
    2. Abhijit Banerjee & Eliana La Ferrara & Victor Orozco, 2019. "Entertainment, Education, and Attitudes Toward Domestic Violence," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 133-137, May.
    3. repec:plo:pone00:0196584 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Leonardo Bursztyn & Alessandra L. González & David Yanagizawa-Drott, 2020. "Misperceived Social Norms: Women Working Outside the Home in Saudi Arabia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(10), pages 2997-3029, October.
    5. Cullen, Claire & Joshi, Sarthak & Vecci, Joseph & Talbot-Jones, Julia, 2024. "Female Empowerment and Male Backlash: Experimental Evidence from India," IZA Discussion Papers 17450, IZA Network @ LISER.
    6. Erin Stern & Ritha Nyiratunga, 2017. "A Process Review of the Indashyikirwa Couples Curriculum to Prevent Intimate Partner Violence and Support Healthy, Equitable Relationships in Rwanda," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-13, June.
    7. Christopher Boyer & Elizabeth Levy Paluck & Jeannie Annan & Tvisha Nevatia & Jasper Cooper & Jackline Namubiru & Lori Heise & Rachel Lehrer, 2022. "Religious leaders can motivate men to cede power and reduce intimate partner violence: Experimental evidence from Uganda," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 119(31), pages 2200262119-, August.
    8. Jeni Klugman & Lucia Hanmer & Sarah Twigg & Tazeen Hasan & Jennifer McCleary-Sills & Julieth Santamaria, 2014. "Voice and Agency : Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 19036, April.
    9. Roy, Shalini & Hidrobo, Melissa & Hoddinott, John F. & Ahmed, Akhter, 2021. "Transfers, behavior change communication, and intimate partner violence: Post-program evidence from rural Bangladesh," IFPRI book chapters, in: Securing food for all in Bangladesh, chapter 15, pages 549-590, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    10. Imbens,Guido W. & Rubin,Donald B., 2015. "Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521885881, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Moscona, Jacob & Nunn, Nathan & Robinson, James A., 2026. "Searching for Fish in Trees (緣木求魚)? Economic Development when Context Matters," CEPR Discussion Papers 21124, Centre for Economic Policy Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rachel Cassidy & Anaya Dam & Wendy Janssens & Umair Kiani & Karlijn Morsink, 2022. "Father of the bride, or steel magnolias? Targeting men, women or both to reduce child marriage," IFS Working Papers W22/50, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    2. Rachel Cassidy & Anaya Dam & Wendy Janssens & Umair Kiani & Karlijn Morsink, 2024. "Targeting men, women or both to reduce child marriage," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 22-087/V, Tinbergen Institute, revised 22 Oct 2024.
    3. Dan Anderberg & Rachel Cassidy & Anaya Dam & Wendy Janssens & Morsink Karlijn & Anouk van Veldhoven, 2024. "Keeping the peace whilst getting your way: Information, persuasion and intimate partner violence," IFS Working Papers W24/22, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    4. Díaz, Juan-José & Saldarriaga, Victor, 2023. "A drop of love? Rainfall shocks and spousal abuse: Evidence from rural Peru," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    5. Jorge M. Agüero & Veronica Frisancho, 2022. "Measuring Violence against Women with Experimental Methods," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(4), pages 1565-1590.
    6. Shah,Manisha & Seager,Jennifer & Montalvao Machado,Joao H. C. & Goldstein,Markus P., 2022. "Two Sides of Gender : Sex, Power, and Adolescence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10072, The World Bank.
    7. Dyah Pritadrajati, 2025. "More Kids, More Conflict? Family Size and Domestic Violence in a High‐Fertility Setting," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(3), September.
    8. Heath, Rachel & Hidrobo, Melissa & Roy, Shalini, 2020. "Cash transfers, polygamy, and intimate partner violence: Experimental evidence from Mali," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    9. Cullen, Claire & Joshi, Sarthak & Vecci, Joseph & Talbot-Jones, Julia, 2024. "Female Empowerment and Male Backlash: Experimental Evidence from India," IZA Discussion Papers 17450, IZA Network @ LISER.
    10. Siwan Anderson, 2022. "Unbundling female empowerment," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 1671-1701, November.
    11. Gazeaud, Jules & Khan, Nausheen & Mvukiyehe, Eric & Sterck, Olivier, 2023. "With or without him? Experimental evidence on cash grants and gender-sensitive trainings in Tunisia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    12. Smita Das & Clara Delavallade & Ayodele Fashogbon & Wale Olatunji Ogunleye & Sreelakshmi Papineni, 2023. "Occupational sex segregation in agriculture: Evidence on gender norms and socio‐emotional skills in Nigeria," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 54(2), pages 179-219, March.
    13. Sascha O. Becker & Jeanet Sinding Bentzen & Chun Chee Kok, 2025. "Gender and Religion: A Survey," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 25111, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).
    14. Sonia Laszlo & Carolina de Miranda & Franque Grimard & Tania Insfrán & Thomas Kokossou & Laura Morínigo & Jim Warnick, 2025. "Norm-Shifting Interventions and Beliefs about Gender Norms in Paraguay," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(4), pages 1797-1834.
    15. Fafchamps, Marcel & Islam, Asad & Pakrashi, Debayan & Tommasi, Denni, 2026. "Diffusion in social networks: Experimental evidence on information sharing vs persuasion," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    16. Eleftherios Giovanis & Oznur Ozdamar, 2025. "Intra-household bargaining, resource allocation and cost of gender-based violence in Egypt: the role of asset ownership and gender role attitudes," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 5(10), pages 1-35, October.
    17. Alberto Alesina & Benedetta Brioschi & Eliana La Ferrara, 2021. "Violence Against Women: A Cross‐cultural Analysis for Africa," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(349), pages 70-104, January.
    18. Hauser,Christina Sarah, 2024. "Tackling Gender Discriminatory Inheritance Law Privately : Lessons from a Survey Expe riment in Tunisia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10693, The World Bank.
    19. Mehmood, Sultan & Naseer, Shaheen & Chen, Daniel L., 2024. "Altruism in governance: Insights from randomized training for Pakistan's junior ministers," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    20. Ana María Muñoz Boudet & Tasmia Rahman & Nour Nasr & Abigail Dalton, 2023. "Addressing Social and Gender Norms to Promote Gender Equality," World Bank Publications - Reports 39992, The World Bank Group.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11040. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.