Violence Against Women, Gender Representation, and Gender Empowerment

1. Violence Against Women, Gender Representation, and Gender Empowerment Ferdaouis Bagga fb5195a@american.edu American University School of International Service

2. Research Question Basic premise: women help other women Original RQ: • Will there be less violence against women in a state which has more female representation in its parliament/lower house? Adjusted RQ: • Will there be more substantive legislative action on violence against women when the state has higher female empowerment?

3. An Australian researcher who says that women work harder in parliament.

4. Hypotheses • Ha= Countries with higher levels of female empowerment will feature more legislation on violence against women. • Ho= There is no relationship between level of female empowerment and legislation on violence against women.

5. Background Sources • Violence Against Women: An International Perspective, by Johnson, H., Ollus, N, and Nevala, S. • The European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, affiliated with the United Nations (HEUNI) • IVAWS – commenced 2003, by 2005 11 countries • Escobar-Lemmon, M. & Taylor-Robinson, M. M. (2005). “Women Ministers in Latin American Government: When, Where, and Why?” • Iyer, L., Mani, A., Mishra, P., & Topalova, P. (2011). “The Power of Political Voice: Women’s Political Representation and Crime in India” • Tremblay, M. (1998). “Do Female MPs Substantively Represent Women? A Study of Legislative Behaviour in Canada’s 35th Parliament” • Yoon, M. Y. (2004). “Explaining Women’s Legislative Representation in Sub-Saharan Africa”

6. Description of Variables Dependent • Unit of Analysis = Country • LOM = Interval-Ratio • Gender empowerment measure: • “gem2005” • From Human Development Report of 2007/2008 • Assigns countries a value indicating how empowered women are based on political, economic, and societal factors

7. Description of Variables • Legislation on violence against women: • “LegislationVAW” • From OECD 2009 • 0=yes, 1=no • Percentage of women in parliament: • “Women2008” • From Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) • Gender-related development index: • “GDIValue2005” • From UNDP • Assesses life expectancy, adult literacy rate, gross enrolment ratios, estimated income • Independent

8. If dependent variable was “Women2008”…

9. Data… Descriptive Statistics

11. Graph Matrix

12. Data… sample

13. Linear Regression Analysis • Using dependent variable gender empowerment measure (gem2005)

14. Conclusions & Policy Suggestions • There is a statistically significant relationship between the gender empowerment variable and legislation on violence against women in all three models. • Sample size is a problem, with less than half the world’s countries represented by this data. • The coefficient for legislation on violence against women appears negative, but this is because the range of values is between 0 and 1, with 0 being the ideal “yes, there is legislation on violence against women.” Thus, when gender empowerment rises, the value of “LegislationVAW” decreases, getting closer to a solid yes, and countries more frequently have legislation on violence against women. • Model three is the strongest with an R2 of 0.7244, meaning that when percentage of women in parliament and level of gender development are also taken into account, there is a strong positive relationship. • When more women are empowered, especially politically, there will be more substantive legislative action to combat violence against women.