Estimating the Costs of Domestic Violence Against Women in Viet Nam
Summary
The Estimating the Costs of Domestic Violence Against Women in Viet Nam report aims to provide a reliable estimate of the economic costs of domestic violence in Viet Nam, including potential opportunity and productivity loss to the national economy. The study used mixed methods for the data collection and a total of 1053 women were surveyed – 541 in the rural area and 512 in the urban area– to obtain relevant information on experiences of domestic violence and its associated costs at the household level.
The research considered two elements of the economic costs of domestic violence: 1) the actual out-of-pocket expenditures that women incur to access medical treatment, police support, legal support, counselling support, and judicial support, and 2) an additional out-of-pocket expenditure which is the lost school fees if children miss school due to domestic violence experienced by their mothers.
It was also found that the major element of economic cost is the income foregone due to missed work including both missing paid work and household work. The survey collected detailed information per incident on specific expenditures women had to incur, number of days of paid and household work missed and number of school days missed by children.
Contents
- Chapter One: Background, Literature Review and Objectives
- Background
- Costs of Domestic (Intimate Partner) Violence
- Viet Nam Context
- Review of Literature on Domestic Violence in Viet Nam
- Response to Domestic Violence
- Chapter Two: Methodology and Implementation
- Scope of Investigation
- Data and Methodology
- Study Implementation
- Ethical Considerations
- Limitations of the Study
- Chapter Three: The impact of Intimate Partner Violence: Findings
- Socio-economic Profile of Respondent
- Health and Well-Being
- Incidents of Intimate Partner Violence
- DV Model: Determinants of Violence
- Costs of Domestic Violence: Household Level
- Costs of Domestic Violence: Service Provision
- Macro-estimates of Costs
- Chapter Four: Summary of Main Findings and Recommendations
- Main Findings
- Recommendations
- References
- Annexes
Highlights
- The study confirms that the level violence experienced among girls and women is high and pervasive cutting across all socio-economic groups, education levels and regions. A crude estimation for the economy as a whole suggests that both out of pocket expenditures and lost earnings represent nearly 1.41% of the GDP in Viet Nam that stood at 2,536,000 billion VND in 2010.
- More importantly, regression results for estimating productivity loss due to violence indicate that women experiencing violence earn 35% less than those not abused representing another significant drain on the national economy. An estimate of overall productivity loss comes to 1.78% of GDP.
- Even though the data for service providers was extremely fragmented making cost estimation on a yearly basis with any rigor infeasible, these cost estimates nonetheless underscore the urgent need to comprehensively address domestic violence.
- The estimates provided by this research thus aim to contribute to deeper understanding among policy makers, political leaders, NGOs, communities and families the full cost of inaction in addressing domestic violence.
