This study highlights that marital violence has a significant impact on household expenditure, unpaid household production and care work, absenteeism and presenteeism of women and men, and wage employment of women in the State of Palestine.

Introduction

Violence against women is a pervasive problem that cuts across cultural and religious barriers. World Health Organization global estimates indicate that one in three women experience some form of physical and/or sexual violence, perpetrated predominantly by a partner or ex-partner, over their lifetime.

It is widely acknowledged that violence against women and girls has multiple impacts that translate into losses for women, families and communities/businesses, as well as macro losses for society.

The specific objectives of the study are as follows:

As with all aspects of daily life, gender relations and dynamics are influenced by the ongoing occupation, leading to differential impacts on women, men, girls and boys. 32 In addition to restricting women and girls’ access to basic services and opportunities, Israeli checkpoints and policies reduce their access to a secure livelihood and deny them the right to protection of the family unit, particularly in the West Bank and Gaza.

Violence against women and girls, predominantly a consequence of entrenched patriarchal norms and traditions, and a lack of progress in legislative reforms, poses a significant challenge to gender equality in the State of Palestine.

Palestinian women also experience various forms of violence related to the occupation; for example, ever married women and girls are exposed to violence at Israeli checkpoints, with 3.3 per cent reporting psychological violence, 0.6 per cent physical violence and 0.2 per cent sexual violence in 2011.

Approximately six in 10 currently married women reported experiencing at least one form of violence by their husbands in the last 12 months, with 22.7 per cent reporting physical and/or sexual violence.

Overall, one in four (25.2 per cent) currently married women experiencing marital violence in the last 12 months reported incurring some OOP expenditure.

The average OOP expenditure incurred by survivors of marital violence in the last 12 months amounted to $184.30. The average yearly per capita non-food expenditure in the State of Palestine is $439.10. This implies that 25.1 per cent of marital violence survivors who incurred some OOP costs spent, on average, 11.8 per cent of their yearly non-food expenditure on these.

Nearly 6 per cent of currently married women experiencing violence in the last 12 months reported missing childcare for 9.2 days, resulting in 292,254 days when survivors could not take care of their children.

A small percentage of currently married women experiencing violence reported that their husbands missed approximately 4.4 childcare days, resulting in approximately 46,451 days lost nationally.

This study highlights that marital violence has a significant impact on household expenditure, unpaid household production and care work, absenteeism and presenteeism of women and men, and wage employment of women in the State of Palestine.

The most direct effect on household expenditure arises from the fact almost one in four survivors incurred some OOP costs, equivalent to an average 11.8 per cent of their yearly non-food expenditure. Such inflated expenditure could be much better utilized on such items as children’s education, household leisure activities and gifts for family members.

It is significant that marital violence unquestionably affects the ability of women to do care work, which is integral to the overall contribution women make to wider society and the economy. Crucially, while survivors missed about 260,000 care workdays nationally, their husbands also missed approximately 42,000 care workdays. A woman’s care workday is about triple (6.63 hours) that of men (2.65), implying that women, in hourly terms missed considerably more care work-hours. This has important consequences in the current pandemic, which has led to both an increase in marital violence and care work for women.

This study also points to the impact of marital violence on economic activity in terms of loss through absenteeism and presenteeism. The almost equal impact of women and men’s absenteeism (100,336 days versus 88,640 days) must be interpreted with caution, given women’s low labour force participation. It is important to keep in mind the high number of missed workdays reported by women – on average 23 days of paid and unpaid work. Further, husbands also missed work due to marital violence against women. Though a relatively small group, those who do miss work do so for a significant number of days (on average, nine unpaid days). On presenteeism, a dimension of productivity loss rarely measured in violence research, we see much higher levels among women, the reported days much higher than for men. Violence has significant impacts on women’s productivity at the workplace, potentially seriously affecting their employment stability, earnings and future occupational mobility, all factors that contribute to the continued gender wage gap in the State of Palestine.

Perhaps the study’s most important finding is in establishing female’s low wage employment due to marital violence and the effect on a woman’s decision-making about the nature of their own wage employment. Based on sensitivity analysis, there is significant potential to increase women’s wage employment by a minimum 41 per cent and as high as 52 per cent. Given data limitations, this impact cannot be easily monetized but the analysis suggests that an increase in women’s wage employment could be sizeable and have profound impact on the economic production of the State of Palestine.

This study has demonstrated that continuing marital violence is costly for Palestinian women and their families, the economy and society. The key recommendations are as follows: