Alcohol consumption and domestic violence against mothers

A recent high-profile murder case and the passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act have focused policymakers' attention on domestic violence against pregnant women and new mothers. The link between men's alcohol consumption and spousal abuse has led some to suggest that more stringent alcohol regulations could ameliorate domestic violence.

(i) To examine the correlation between men's alcohol consumption and domestic violence against new mothers and test how sensitive the correlation is to assumptions about unobserved heterogeneity, (ii) To test whether higher liquor taxes and more stringent alcohol control regulations are associated with a lower incidence of domestic abuse.

Using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, I estimate ordinary least squares, bivariate probit, two-stage least squares, and fixed effects models to test the relationship between alcohol consumption and domestic violence.

My findings suggest that while there is a strong positive association between men's alcohol consumption and the commission of domestic violence against new mothers, this correlation is highly sensitive to assumptions about unobservables. There is little evidence that higher liquor taxes or more stringent alcohol regulations will significantly reduce domestic violence.

The empirical results suggest evidence for an 'unobserved bum hypothesis' That is, unobservable characteristics of the father may be correlated with both the likelihood that he abuses pregnant women (or new mothers) and that he drinks heavily. While the findings of this paper cannot rule out the possibility that men's alcohol consumption has some effect on domestic violence, there is little evidence to suggest that the impact is large in magnitude. Moreover, there is little evidence that higher liquor taxes or stricter alcohol supply regulations reduce the incidence of domestic abuse. However, greater policy heterogeneity across states and over time would be beneficial in further exploring this issue.

Alcohol regulations, such as higher liquor taxes, are rather ineffective policies at reducing domestic violence against pregnant women and new mothers. Moreover, because policies that regulate alcohol availability or tax its consumption will harm non-violent drinkers, such policies may also be target inefficient. Rather than using non-credible, indirect mechanisms such as alcohol regulation, increasing criminal penalties for harming pregnant women or their unborn children may be a more direct method reducing domestic violence.

Future research that attempts to estimate the impact of alcohol consumption on the likelihood of domestic violence must carefully consider how unobservables may impact both drinking and abuse. Future work should utilize a longer panel dataset with greater within-state alcohol policy variation to allow for more robust tests of the impact of alcohol regulations on the prevalence of domestic violence.