The effects of the fight against domestic violence on labor market

• Grant number: 22/13078-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: February 01, 2023
• End date: January 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics - Social Welfare Economics
• Principal Investigator: Rodrigo Reis Soares
• Grantee: Vinicius Gomes de Lima
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa (Insper). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to estimate the effects of a policy to deter domestic violence on labor market outcomes. From a microeconomic perspective, the level of domestic violence and labor market decisions can emerge as equilibrium outcomes in the process of intrahousehold allocation of resources. The distribution of bargaining power among family members is a key mechanism to explain this joint determination of resource allocation and domestic violence. Once a policy offers protection and increases alternatives for women to leave an abusive relationship it redistributes bargaining power in favor of women. Thus, although it targets violence directly, it also could affect everything that depends on the distribution of bargaining power including, for example, time allocation.We intend to analyze the consequences of the Maria da Penha Law (LMP) introduced in 2006 in Brazil, which created mechanisms to restrain domestic violence against women. There are two key premises in this project: (i) the legal devices that provide protection and alternatives to victims of domestic violence redistribute bargaining power in favor of them, and (ii) the access to special police departments devoted to handling cases of domestic violence matters for women to receive the benefits arising from legal protection.To estimate the effects, the empirical approach will explore existing spatial heterogeneity in the access to special police departments since before the approval of LMP. Then, it is possible to compare the outcomes of interest for women of different places before and after the LMP, in an application of the difference-in-differences method.