The Heavy Economic Toll of Gender-based Violence: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

: The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns have led to a rise in gender-based violence. In this paper, we explore the economic consequences of violence against women in sub-Saharan Africa using large demographic and health survey data collected pre-pandemic. Relying on a two-stage least square method to address endogeneity, we find that an increase in the share of women subject to violence by 1 percentage point can reduce economic activities (as proxied by nightlights) by up to 8 percent. This economic cost results from a significant drop in female employment. Our results also show that violence against women is more detrimental to economic development in countries without protective laws against domestic violence, in natural resource rich countries, in countries where women are deprived of decision-making power and during economic downturns. Beyond the moral imperative, the findings highlight the importance of combating violence against women from an economic standpoint, particularly by reinforcing laws against domestic violence and strengthening women’s decision-making power. This paper proposes a novel approach to assess the economic impact of VAWG in 18 sub-Saharan countries across all income groups based on the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) database. The data from this database was initially compiled by USAID’s Demographic and Health Survey Program, covering country surveys from the 1980s to the present. The IMPUMS data contains information on the prevalence of violence against women and girls. We combine this data with the level of economic activity (approximated by nighttime light data per capita) for 224 districts in sub-Saharan Africa. By exploiting the cross-district variations, we attempt to answer the following questions: Our analysis uses several types of violence against women, including physical (hurting, punching, slapping, etc.), emotional, and sexual violence. We also generate an aggregate index of violence against women and girls, which is the simple average of the different types of violence used in the paper. As for the empirical methodology, since economic activity could also affect the level of VAWG, we suggest an instrumental variable approach using the prevalence of violence against women and girls in neighboring districts as instrument. The use of the two stage least squares method allows us to address the endogeneity problem and identify the causal effect of violence against women on the economy. To explore the robustness of the results, we control for a wide range of possible determinants of the level of economic activity, exclude outliers, use an alternative measure of violence based on control and beliefs and use an alternative instrumental variable. We find that violence against women and girls has a negative effect on economic activity. The results show that when the percentage of women subject to domestic violence declines by 1 percentage point, per capita nightlights-based economic activities increase by 8 percent. Our results provide empirical support for the channel through which violence against women and girls can affect economic activity, as we find that more violence is associated with a significant drop in female employment. Our results also show that violence against women is more detrimental to economic development in countries without protective laws against domestic violence, natural resource rich countries, where women are deprived of decision-making power and during economic downturns such as this pandemic crisis. In addition, we find that the economic cost of violence against women is higher in countries where the gender gap in education between partners is high. The results are robust to several alternative specifications. The findings imply that sub-Saharan African countries should strengthen laws to combat violence against women and reinforce women’s decision-making power. Furthermore, promoting women’s education will be key to reduce the gender gap in education and the influence and control by men. Sub-Saharan African countries should also address the increased levels of domestic violence during the COVID-19 crisis to bolster the economic recovery.