Productivity Impacts of Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence From Africa and South America

Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women and girls is recognized as a human rights problem with little understanding of its ripple effects on the workplace. While the literature has attempted to understand the impacts of IPV on the workplace in high-income countries, relatively, literature on low and middle-income countries is very scant. Using primary survey data collected from 16,921 workers in 257 businesses in Ghana, South Sudan, Bolivia, and Paraguay, this is the largest ever study of its kind that highlights the invisible costs businesses incur due to IPV experienced by female employees. IPV’s economic impact on labor productivity is based on tardiness, absenteeism, and presenteeism. Unlike the common perception that violence affects only the survivors, this study also estimates the effects on perpetrators. The results show that IPV exists in all the businesses surveyed, leading to enormous productivity losses due to both the experience and perpetration of IPV.