We empirically examine whether violation of hypergamy—which occurs when the wife's economic status equals or exceeds that of her husband's—causally affects domestic violence using microdata from India. Identifying the causal effect of hypergamy violation on domestic violence, however, is challenging due to unmeasured confounding and reverse causality. To overcome these difficulties, we utilize a non-parametric bounds approach. Employing this approach, we find strong evidence that violation of hypergamy leads to a significant increase in domestic violence. Furthermore, we provide suggestive evidence that this result arises because violation of hypergamy is likely to undermine patriarchal beliefs and norms about gender roles, and also because it is likely to increase men's likelihood of using domestic violence as an instrument to sabotage their wives' labour market prospects. Our findings suggest that policies that seek to empower women and promote gender equality might paradoxically increase women's exposure to domestic violence.

中文翻译：

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不要越界：限制一夫多妻制对印度家庭暴力的因果影响

我们使用来自印度的微观数据，凭经验检验是否违反一夫多妻制——当妻子的经济状况等于或超过丈夫的经济状况时发生——是否会因果影响家庭暴力。然而，由于无法衡量的混杂和反向因果关系，确定一夫多妻制对家庭暴力的因果影响具有挑战性。为了克服这些困难，我们使用非参数边界方法。采用这种方法，我们发现强有力的证据表明，违反一夫多妻制会导致家庭暴力显着增加。此外，我们提供了暗示性证据表明出现这种结果是因为违反一夫多妻制很可能会破坏父权制信仰和性别角色规范，也因为它可能会增加男性的 使用家庭暴力作为破坏其妻子劳动力市场前景的工具的可能性。我们的研究结果表明，旨在赋予女性权力和促进性别平等的政策可能反而会增加女性遭受家庭暴力的风险。