AIMS

In this project we will seek to map out the dynamic relationships between employment, health and domestic violence using all available relevant information in the ALSPAC data. The data will be analyzed using both generic statistical methods and specialised structural dynamic models. The purpose will be to understand not only the incidence of domestic violence, but also its timing and the causal linkages between violence, health, partnership status, and economic outcomes.

A second aim of the project is to consider the impact of domestic violence on child outcomes. There is evidence that living with violence has health, psychological, behavioural and emotional effects on children (see e.g. Mullender, 2001). However, a challenge in this literature is to separate out the effect of domestic violence from other unobserved family characteristics. For this purpose the ALSPAC data, which is rich in information both with respect to family background and with respect to child outcomes, can provide further insights into the true causal impact of living in a family characterised by abuse. The specific requirements for the project involve information from existing questionnaires. Measures of domestic violence will be based on the repeated question on occurrence of physical (and emotional cruelty) by the partner. However, we will also be making use of available information on health status, partnership status, economic activity. Hence will be making use of information from the questionnaires completed by the mothers (and partners) at all points in time. For the analysis of child outcomes we will be needing information from the child-based questionnaires, the child-completed questionnaires and the schools questionaires.