Abstract

VIVES-CASES, Carmen; GIL-GONZALEZ, Diana; CARRASCO-PORTINO, Mercedes  and  ALVAREZ-DARDET, Carlos. Systematic review of studies on the socioeconomic status of men who batter their intimate partners. Gac Sanit [online]. 2007, vol.21, n.5, pp.425-430. ISSN 0213-9111.

Background: Despite the visibility of intimate partner violence against women in low socioeconomic groups, the association of low socioeconomic status and violent behavior is unclear. We performed a systematic review of the empirical evidence on the causal role of batterers' socioeconomic status in this phenomenon. Methods: We performed a systematic review, using the following databases: Eric (1966-2004), Sociological Abstracts (1963-2005), Science Citation Index (1945-2005), Social Science Citation Index (1956-2005), Medline through Pubmed (1966-2005), Social Service Abstracts (1980-2005), Lilacs (1982-2005) and Psycinfo (1972-2005). We included empirical papers with aims or hypothesis related to the causal relation between low socioeconomic status (employment, education, income) in men and IPV. Results: A total of 251 studies were identified, but only 10 met the inclusion criteria. There was one cohort study, one case-control study, one ecological study and one study based on a series of cases. Two studies calculated odds ratio in the analyses. One of these studies reported an odds ratio of 1.4 (95% CI, 1.1-1.9) with unemployment and the other study showed no significant positive associations with this factor or with low income or education. Conclusions: More information and better quality data are required to establish conclusive results on the causal role of the socioeconomic status of men who batter their intimate partners. The empirical evidence on the relationship between violent male behavior against their partners and low socioeconomic status is still insufficient.

Keywords : Batterers; Domestic violence; Socioeconomic status; Systematic review.

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