Male backlash, bargaining, or exposure reduction?: women's working status and physical spousal violence in India

Labor force participation of women is expected to decrease the risk of spousal violence by enhancing their bargaining power or diminishing their contacts with abusive partners. The opposite effect is predicted when female employment induces male backlash. I identify the effect of female employment on spousal violence by exploiting the exogenous variations in rural women's working status driven by rainfall shocks and the rice-wheat dichotomy. The instrumental variable regression result indicates that female employment significantly reduces the incidence of spousal violence. This result is mainly driven by the exposure reduction effect that dominates male backlash. There is, however, no evidence on the bargaining effect.