Is wife beating justifiable? : a comparison of men and women’s views from 4 of the 10 poorest provinces in the Philippines

This paper compares the beliefs of men and women about the justifiability of wife beating using data from representative samples of men 15 to 55 years old (N= 10534) and women 15-49 years old (N=10884) from four of the 10 poorest provinces in the Philippines. The four provinces differ substantially in religion and ethnic composition. Attitudes about the justifiability of wife beating is gauged from agreement to a series of hypothetical situations adopted from the Demographic and Health Survey questionnaire. Data is analyzed separately for men and women using binary logistic regression with agreement to the justifiability of wife beating under any of seven situations as dependent variable.
Predictors of justifiability of wife beating that are explored are individual characteristics of age, marital status and education. Religion and province are conceptualized as proxies for cultural influences which contain proscriptions about gender roles that could influence one’s views about wife beating. For men, an additional predictor is the belief that use of contraception may make a woman promiscuous. Separate regression runs are made for ever married respondents with addition of the variable, ever hit wife among men and ever been subjected to intimate partner violence among women.