Intimate Partner Violence among Older Adolescents and Young Adults

What norms contribute to this behavior?

Social norms are the perceived, informal rules that define acceptable, appropriate, and obligatory actions within a given group or community. Some social norms are specific to a particular context, while others may be broad enough to span multiple contexts; even seemingly contradictory norms may exist in same context.1

The following examples represent social norms relevant to intimate partner violence for older adolescents (ages 15-18) and young adults (ages 19-25) that emerged from the literature. They are not meant to be a comprehensive list of all relevant social norms; some norms may only be relevant in particular contexts. 

  • Masculine and patriarchal norms contribute to the belief that men are superior to women and are expected to be dominant within a relationship. These norms support the belief that men have the right to be abusive.2–9 Wives are expected to obey their husbands, including fulfilling sexual desires and desires for male children.2–4,7–11
    Meta-Norms: Authority; Control and Violence; Gender Ideology; Protection
  • Gender roles can contribute to sexual violence when men are expected to be dominant and aggressive in taking initiative in sexual matters, and when masculinity is tied to frequent sexual desire and activity.3,8,9,11 Women are expected to be bashful and submissive; when women express sexual desire, they may be negatively considered promiscuous.3,4,7 Women may comply with unwanted sexual activity with their husbands to prevent accusations of her infidelity or to prevent his infidelity.8,9
    Meta-Norms: Authority; Control and Violence; Gender Ideology;
  • Rooted in norms that women should be submissive and men should maintain order in their home, women who experience violence are often blamed for inciting the violence she endures. Such justifications for abusing women include her perceived inability to communicate effectively or inappropriate behavior, such as going out at night.2–4,6,7 Men are also expected to take responsibility within their marriages for their wives, including punishing her for inappropriate behavior or defying gender norms.2,4,6–9,12
    Meta-Norms: Authority; Control and Violence; Gender Ideology; Protection
  • Some religious norms can uphold intimate partner violence,2 others can also be protective for girls/young women.4,13
    Meta-Norms: Authority; Control and Violence; Gender Ideology
  • Norms around infidelity and control are associated with intimate partner violence. These norms excuse infidelity in men and punish it in women. Jealousy, fear of infidelity, and the potential social stigma resulting from suspected or actual infidelity may drive intimate partner violence.2,7–9,14
    Meta-Norms: Control and Violence; Gender Ideology; Social Status
  • Community norms that uphold bride price or dowry, may support the belief that the exchange of assets gives husbands absolute authority over their wives, including the use of intimate partner violence.3,15
    Meta-Norms: Authority; Control and Violence; Gender Ideology
  • Discussing family matters, such as experiencing IPV, outside of the home is considered inappropriate and a disgrace to the family’s honor and the woman’s reputation.2,3,16
    Meta-Norms: Control and Violence; Gender Ideology; Privacy
  • Societal pressure against divorce can compel women to stay in an abusive relationship.2,12 Women are expected to endure violence in order to keep their family together and avoid divorce,10 which carries heavy stigma for women who may never remarry or regain social status.17 Support to women experiencing IPV is limited, because families worry excessive intervention could result in divorce.2 
    Meta-Norms: Authority; Control and Violence; Gender Ideology; Privacy; Protection

What other factors affect this behavior?

Violence in intimate relationships – both experiencing and perpetrating – often starts early in partnerships and is influenced by social norms along with other factors. These factors may include income, experiencing violence in childhood, and the presence of dowry or bride price in a community (both payment and non-payment may be associated with violence). Some examples are listed below:

Individual

Interpersonal

Community/Environmental

Who influences this behavior?

Intimate partner violence and the norms that underpin it are often deeply embedded in communities, though some groups may have more influence on the occurrence, prevention or response to violent behaviors. These reference groups include: 

  • Parents, in-laws, and extended families1–3
  • Women and men who upheld traditional gender norms and family structures1,4–7
  • Religious Leaders1
  • Communities8–10

Selected interventions addressing norms and behaviors?

  • The Male Norms Initiative intervention was implemented by Hiwot Ethiopia and EngenderHealth to promote gender-equitable norms among boys and men aged 15-24 and reduce intimate partner violence in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The intervention included two main components; group discussions and community mobilization and engagement.  The first was a series of interactive group education sessions with young men, using Engaging Boys and Men in Gender Transformation: The Group Education Manual, to cover topics including gender and power, gender roles, healthy relationships, and violence using role-play and discussion to promote personal reflection. Community mobilization and engagement included a March on International Father’s Day, distribution of monthly newsletters and leaflets, music and drama skits, monthly community workshop meetings, and condom distribution. The intervention was evaluated through a quasi-experimental study that compared three arms: a control group, a community engagement-only group, and a group that received both community engagement and group education. Both intervention groups reported increases in gender-equitable attitudes, which are related to norms, using the GEM Scale, as well as a decline in intimate partner violence, relative to the control group.1,2
  • The Minna Dada(I Have A Sister) campaign was implemented by UZIKWASA, a community-based organization in the Pangani District of Tanzania, starting in 2016. Minna Dada is an integrated intervention that aims to prevent IPV among adolescent boys and girls aged 15-18 by promoting community solidarity. The components of this intervention are community workshops, called Minna Dada camps, and additional training for community leaders at the district level. This message is echoed in existing UZIKWASA programming, a set of integrated activities aiming to increase gender justice and equality and reduce gender-based violence. Components of these activities include dialogue campaigns; mass media campaigns with community theater, film, magazines, and radio; gender-transformative leadership training; and community-wide ‘camps’ addressing gender equality. A qualitative evaluation was conducted after the implementation of the Minna Dada campaign, including results of other UZIKWASA programming. The study found increased awareness of intimate partner violence, including elements such as economic abuse, in particular men who realized that they and their communities were perpetrating it. There was a perceived reduction in gender-based violence, including intimate partner violence, and impact was also perceived in related areas like girls remaining in school, reduction of early marriage and increased support for those who had experienced intimate partner violence. Findings suggested that norms change programs should include components at the community level.3

This web feature was written by the Institute for Reproductive Health with volunteer experts through the YouthPower2 Learning and Evaluation Gender Community of Practice. Additional content review was provided by colleagues at IRH and UCSD.

This web feature was created by Karin Smith and Anneka Van Scoyoc of the Population Reference Bureau. Charlotte Greenbaum, Raquel Wojnar, and Rachel Yavinsky, all of PRB, provided review.

© Institute for Reproductive Health 2022. All Rights Reserved.

Institute for Reproductive Health
Georgetown University

irhinfo@georgetown.edu
202-687-1392

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About Passages

About the Behavior Studies

The Passages Project is a USAID-funded seven-year implementation research project that aims to address a broad range of social norms, at scale, to achieve sustained improvements in family planning (FP), reproductive health (RH), and gender-based violence. Passages seeks to build an evidence base and contribute to the capacity of the global community to strengthen normative environments that support RH and well-being, especially among young people at key life stages transition points, including young adolescents, newly married couples, and first-time parents. As part of this effort, the Passages Project conducted a scoping review of evidence related to social norms affecting adolescents and young adults in low- and middle-income countries.

To conduct the scoping review, Passages Project consortium members first developed consensus around a list of priority behaviors for each of three age groupings: very young adolescents (VYA; 10-14 years); older adolescents (OA; 15-18 years); and young adults (19-25 years). For each of these groups, consortium members outlined behaviors from three broad thematic areas: 1) RH and FP, focusing on puberty for VYA and voluntary use of contraception for OA and young adults; 2) primary and secondary education for VYA and OA; and 3) family violence, focusing on child marriage for VYA and OA, and intimate partner violence for OA and young adults. Experts on adolescent social and behavior change (SBC) were engaged to rank priority behaviors based on criteria including current evidence gaps, their importance to thematic area outcomes, and promise for norms-shifting approaches.

This process resulted in seven priority behavior-age group combinations that were subsequently re-organized in five behavior studies, with some age groupings combined due to lack of specific evidence or lack of disaggregation compatible with Passages’ original groupings. These five behavior studies are:

  • Adolescent education: Ages 10-25; includes very young adolescents, older adolescents and young adults; a majority of the available evidence focused on adolescent girls and young women.
  • Puberty among very young adolescents: Ages 10-14.
  • Voluntary use of contraception among older adolescents and young adults: Ages 15-25; includes groups of young adults such as first-time parents and newly married couples.
  • Intimate partner violence among older adolescents and young adults: Ages 15-25; includes groups of young adults such as first-time parents and newly married couples.
  • Child marriage among very young adolescents and older adolescents: Ages 10-18; includes very young adolescents and older adolescents; a majority of the available evidence focused on very young adolescent girls.

Scoping reviews were conducted for each priority behavior/age grouping combination. This phase reviewed four databases (PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, and PsycINFO) of peer-reviewed literature focusing on literature from 2010 – 2021. Over 5,000 studies were screened, of which 521 met the inclusion criteria in at least one priority behavior/age grouping. After further evaluating each study that met the initial inclusion criteria, Passages selected studies that:

  1. Investigated the influence of specific social norms on the priority behavior and age groupings, and/or how these norms are held in place; and/or
  2. Described or evaluated promising approaches to address or shift these social norms for a given behavior and age grouping.

The resulting literature base for each behavior study was analyzed by Passages project staff and volunteers with expertise in SBC programming for adolescents and young people. Each behavior studies include information on:

  • Social norms relevant to the behavior that emerged from across the literature for the age grouping. These are ‘tagged’ by the identified underlying meta-norms they reflect, using terminology from the Learning Collaborative’s Social Norms Atlas and Passages’ Social Norms Lexicon.
  • Other, non-normative variances that affect the behavior or practice within the age grouping.
  • Influential reference groups. In reporting findings, there are differences in the specificity of naming these influential groups (i.e., religious leaders versus communities at large) that directly reflect the literature.
  • Two selected relevant interventions that described addressing norms related to the priority behavior for the age grouping, or contained a norms-shifting component, regardless of rigorous measurement of this norms-shifting component. Each selected intervention is ‘tagged’ with the identified norms-shifting approaches in their programming, using terminology from the Passages Theory of Change).

 

Literature Gaps

The majority of published literature focuses on investigating the influence of social norms on target behaviors, often finding a strong influence of gender and other social norms on target behaviors. However, many of these studies did not disaggregate or analyze data by age or gender.

It is therefore challenging to understand either the influence of norms on the behaviors and practices of and for young people or how these norms may be shifted– and especially for different and distinct stages of youth. Adolescence, marriage, and first pregnancy are key transitional phases in the life course in which norms are likely different; it is thus vital to disaggregate findings by age or life stage and gender. Few of the studies measured norms rigorously, and many used attitudes as a proxy for norms. For example, many studies used the Gender-Equitable Men (GEM) scale to measure norms, although the scale measures individual attitudes rather than social expectations.

Only a few of the studies reviewed included a definition of social or gender norms, discussed formative work to identify existing norms, or outlined a named framework or their program theory of change. Social norms were conceived in various manners and according to various disciplines, and were not always consistent with the Passages Project’s definition of social norms as “what I think people do and what I think people should or should not do in my community.” It was not common for studies to report the boundaries of the communities (for example, ‘parents of very young adolescents within X region,’ rather than just ‘parents’) within which norms, or proxies, where measured. Nor was it common for studies to explicitly identify reference groups (see the Passages Social Norms Lexicon for full definitions).

Most of the interventions included in the review were multi-component interventions, of which norms-shifting activities were often only a small component of the overall activities. Very few studies evaluated the effect of norms-shifting interventions on target behaviors, and fewer still measured norms or norm changes over time.  Asa a result, it is challenging to attribute behavioral changes to norms-shifting activities. More work is needed to evaluate norms-shifting interventions using valid and reliable social norms measures, measuring norm shifting against a comparison group to better understand the added effect of norms-shifting activities on norms and behaviors.

All said, the review affirmed that promising practices to address youth behavior across these three domains exist. We believe that it is possible, feasible, and important to design and evaluate norms-shifting interventions for adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health behaviors based on understood and accepted definitions, strong formative work to identify norms and meta-norms, and outlining the communities, influencers, and pathways through which norms impact behaviors.