The Combined Effect of Women's Neighborhood Resources and Collective Efficacy on IPV

• Published date: 01 August 2016
• Date: 01 August 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12294
• Author: Aubrey L. Jackson

A L. J University of New Mexico

The Combined Effect of Women’s Neighborhood

Resources and Collective Efcacy on IPV

This study integrates gender stratication and

social disorganization theories to examine

neighborhood effects on intimate partner vio-

lence (IPV). Using data from the Project on

Human Development in Chicago Neighbor-

hoods, multilevel models assessed the inuences

of women’s neighborhood-level socioeconomic

resources relative to men’s and collective ef-

cacy on a woman’s risk of IPV victimization by

her spouse or cohabiting partner. The ndings

indicate that women’s relative neighborhood

resources protect against IPV victimization

only in neighborhoods with sufciently high

collective efcacy. Likewise, the results show

that collective efcacy protects against IPV

victimization only when women have at least

a modicum of control over neighborhood

resources compared to men. The ndings

emphasize the importance of considering group

resources along with neighborhood social

organization to better understand IPV. More

broadly, this study demonstrates how a group’s

position in a neighborhood social hierarchy

helps determine the extent to which its members

benet from neighborhood social control.

B

Research has suggested that the likelihood

of violent victimization in part is explained

Department of Sociology, Universityof New Mexico,

MSC05 3080 1 Univ of NM 1915 Roma NE, Albuquerque,

NM 87131 (aubreyjackson@unm.edu).

KeyWords: collective efcacy,gender stratication, intimate

partner violence, neighborhoods, social disorganization.

by neighborhood characteristics (Browning,

Feinberg, & Dietz, 2004; Maimon & Brown-

ing, 2012; Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls,

1997). And increasingly, research on a specic

form of violence—intimate partner violence

(IPV)—considers neighborhood inuences

(Pinchevsky & Wright, 2012). But this literature

largely has been isolated from macro-level

approaches that are rooted in gender stratica-

tion theory. So although past research suggests

that inequality between men and women at the

city and state levels of aggregation inuences

violence against women (Vieraitis, Kovandzic,

& Britto, 2008; Whaley & Messner, 2002; Xie,

Heimer, & Lauritsen, 2012; Xie, Lauritsen, &

Heimer, 2012; Yllö & Straus, 1995), only one

study has examined whether this association

exists at a more local level (Koenig, Ahmed,

Hossain, & Mozumder, 2003), and none has

investigated how it interacts with social orga-

nizational processes in the neighborhood. To

address this limitation, I draw from both gender

stratication and social disorganization theories

to examine how the residential neighborhood

inuences a woman’s risk of violent victim-

ization by her intimate partner (hereafter, IPV

risk).

The residential neighborhood is an impor-

tant context to consider because it is a key

locus of social control (Sampson, Morenoff, &

Gannon-Rowley, 2002), and IPV tends to occur

close to home (Bureau of Justice Statistics,

2015). And although most studies of IPV focus

on characteristics of individuals, an emergent

literature suggests that women’s risk of IPV

victimization also varies by neighborhood

890 Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (August 2016): 890–907

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12294

Women’s Resources and Collective Efcacy on IPV 891

context. In their review of empirical research on

IPV, Pinchevsky and Wright (2012) identied

just under 30 studies that assess neighborhood

inuences. These studies drew from theories

of social disorganization, which refers to a

community’s inability to achieve its shared

goals, particularly the informal social control

of problem behaviors (Kornhauser, 1978; Shaw

& McKay, 1942). Although this approach has

considerable explanatory power, it is limited

when it does not also consider the factors that

dene a specic behavior as problematic.

Research has suggested that violence is not

universally understood as problematic. For

instance, Berg, Stewart, and Simmons (2012)

found that residents in more disadvantaged

neighborhoods exhibit more disagreement about

the appropriateness of violence. Research also

has suggested that residents interpret violence

as a reasonable or even necessary behavior

in precarious environments void of police

protection (E. Anderson, 1999; Black, 1983;

Kirk & Papachristos, 2011; Soller, Jackson,

& Browning, 2015) and accordingly attenuate

their commitment to the informal social con-

trol of public space (Kirk & Matsuda, 2011).

Moreover, Lyons’s (2007) research on racially

motivated crimes suggests that neighborhood

social organization may even promote some

types of crime. It therefore is imperative to

consider the forces that help dene a behavior as

problematic and worthy of community interven-

tion. In this study, I investigatethe role of gender

conict in shaping collective understandings of

IPV and the implications for women’s IPV risk.

Drawing from Blumberg’s (1984) theory of

gender stratication, I propose that women’s

neighborhood socioeconomic resources relative

to men’s shape the extent to which IPV against

women is understood as a problem that public

social control should target. Integrating social

disorganization approaches (Kornhauser, 1978;

Sampson et al., 1997; Shaw & McKay, 1942), I

further propose that women’s relative neighbor-

hood resources combined with existing social

organizational processes in the neighborhood

protect against a woman’s IPV risk. Finally,

although the primary focus of this study is

contextual effects at the neighborhood level of

aggregation, I briey develop hypotheses about

the inuence of individual-level socioeconomic

status (SES) on IPV risk and about how this

association may vary across neighborhoods

with different levels of women’s aggregate

relative resources. I test these hypotheses

with multilevel analyses of data from the

Project of Human Development in Chicago

Neighborhoods (PHDCN).

Women’s Relative Neighborhood Resources

I propose that gender conict complicates a

cohesive understanding of IPV. Specically,

gender conict arises because force and vio-

lence are resources that groups use to maintain

dominance (Collins, 1975), and feminist theo-

ries propose that in societies with high levels

of gender inequality, men’s use of violence

against women will be more common, and

ideologies that endorse male supremacy will

prevail (Blumberg, 1984; Dobash & Dobash,

1979). Consistent with this view, IPV is a way

that men reinforce a gender hierarchy that favors

men and oppresses women.

Blumberg (1984) proposed that women’s

strongest defense against oppressive measures,

especially at more micro levels of aggregation,

is their control of economic resources rela-

tive to men’s. Women’s control of economic

resources through paid labor and related activ-

ities improves the “strategic indispensability

of women’s work” (Blumberg, 1984, p. 56).

And if women’s work is essential, then women

have economic bargaining power that they may

use to subvert patriarchal ideologies that favor

men’s dominance. Challenging such ideologies

is imperative because strategies that perpet-

uate men’s favorable position in the gender

hierarchy—namely, IPV—will go unimpeded

when women lack sufcient socioeconomic

resources relative to men (Dobash & Dobash,

1979). But women should be empowered to

challenge patriarchal views and the related

tolerance of IPV when women’s relative aggre-

gate resources are greater. Moreover, women’s

relative resources may inuence outcomes for

women at various levels of aggregation.

Blumberg (1984) proposed that society

comprises nested micro and macro levels—

such as the household nested within the

neighborhood—and that women’s power may

vary independently across these nested lev-

els. Blumberg further argued that macro-level

conditions inuence conditions at more micro

levels. But tests of the inuence of women’s

macro-level resources on micro-level outcomes

are rare. Research examining the inuence of

women’s macro-level resources on various