Does Exposure to Armed Conflict Affect Women's Attitudes Toward Intimate Partner Violence? Evidence from Vietnam

This study combines individual-level survey data and province-level data on wartime bombing to assess the long-term impact of the Vietnam War on Vietnamese women’s attitudes toward intimate partner violence (IPV). To establish a causal link between war exposure and IPV attitudes, I use a province’s distance to the arbitrarily drawn border between North Vietnam and South Vietnam as an instrument for bombing intensity in that province. I find that women living in heavily bombed provinces are more likely to accept IPV. The instrumental variable estimates are greater in magnitude compared to the ordinary least squares estimates across various specifications, pointing to measurement error in conflict exposure. Exposure to bombing does not seem to make women more tolerant of IPV through education or marital matching. Instead, the war is likely to directly affect women’s views about IPV because of the normalization of and desensitization to violence in the private sphere.