Schooling and intimate partner violence: retrospective analysis of India's Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan using...

Almost one-third of ever-married women in India experience physical, psychological or sexual violence by their husbands or partners. In this study, we examined the associations of universal primary education with long-term intimate partner violence (IPV) rates and attitudes condoning IPV among women in India.

We used data from the National Family Health Survey 2019-2021 and compared women who were eligible for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)-a national programme of universal primary schooling implemented in 2001-with women who were older and not eligible for SSA. We employed a quasi-experimental method of propensity score matching and fixed effects regression analyses, accounting for a rich set of background socioeconomic and demographic characteristics as covariates.

Intervention group women who were originally eligible for SSA in 2001 (4 years below the primary to secondary transition age of 14 years) were 16%-31% less likely to justify IPV or experience emotional violence than control group women who were not eligible for the programme (4 years above the age cut-off). There were no statistically significant associations between SSA eligibility and the rates of physical IPV experienced by women. The results were robust to a series of sensitivity analyses and alternate model specifications.

Our findings indicate that universal access to primary schooling may play an important role in reducing IPV and improving gender equality in India and similar low-income and middle-income countries.