Turning to women’s household decision-making autonomy, there is a marked difference between the correlates of this variable and the correlates of controlling behavior of husbands/partners. The strongest correlates are related to marital status, child marriage, ethnicity and religion. Having more children is associated with increased likelihood of decision-making autonomy while marriage as a child, marriage in a polygamous household and condoning wife beating are associated with reduced likelihood of women’s household decision-making autonomy (14.7, 22.1, and 31.8 percentage points respectively). Ethnicity and religion are also associated with women’s household decision-making autonomy- being Hausa, Fulani and from other ethnic groups as opposed to being Yoruba decreases the probability of women’s household decision-making autonomy (7.1, 81.3 and 48.4 percentage points respectively) while practicing Islam, the traditional African religions and other religions as opposed to practicing Christianity is associated with decreased women’s household decision-making autonomy (61.9, 73.3 and 97.3 percentage points respectively).

Women’s earnings decision-making autonomy is positively associated with having more children and marriage in a polygamous household (0.3 and 0.9 percentage points respectively), while condoning wife beating is associated with reduced likelihood of women’s earnings decisionmaking autonomy (1.1 percentage points). Again ethnicity and religion are strongly associated with decision-making autonomy- being Hausa, or Fulani as opposed to being Yoruba and practicing the traditional African religion as opposed to practicing Christianity decreases the probability of women’s earnings decision-making autonomy (3.3, 9.4 and 10.7 percentage points respectively), while practicing Islam as opposed to Christianity increases the probability of women’s earnings decision-making autonomy by 1.3 percentage points. Our finding of <mark>the association between being</mark> an ethnic group other than Yoruba and practicing other religions as opposed to Christianity with lower household and earnings decision-making autonomy underscore the significance of ethnic and religious social variation as factors determining women’s empowerment are consistent with other research on Nigeria (Fuseini and Kalule-Sabiti 2015; Kritz and Makinwa-Adebusoye 1999).

<mark>To sum up, the presence of BH is associated with large increases in recognized drivers of IPV, controlling behavior of husband/ partners and women’s lack of agency as proxied by autonomy in household decision-making. It i</mark> ncreases the probability of women’s experience of controlling behavior by husband/partner by 13.8 percentage points and reduces the probability of women’s household decision-making autonomy by 22.4 percentage points. However, the correlates of these drivers differ. While controlling behavior is mitigated by women’s earnings of any kind and exacerbated by women’s attitudes to and experience of IPV and her husband/ partner’s use of alcohol, cultural factors such as religion and ethnicity are strongly associated with women’s household decision-making autonomy and being in a polygamous marriage, being married as a child and condoning IPV are associated with less decision-making autonomy for women.

5.3. Evidence in support of the DD estimation method A key identifying assumption in the DD model specified in equation (1) is that in the absence of the BH insurgency, the differences in the trends of IPV between the BH affected and unaffected areas would be the same. To reinforce the plausibility of our DD model, we proceed to a placebo test. While we cannot explicitly test this assumption, we present evidence in support of parallel trends. First, in Figure 4, we present graphs of the mean levels of IPV and its key drivers before and during the BH insurgency. The graphs suggest that in the period before the BH insurgency, 22