Intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a major concern for women in India, with more than one in four married women reporting physical and/or sexual violence from their husbands¹. Higher levels of IPV are more prevalent in rural, less educated, poorer, and marginalized populations and geographies with lower health and education access^1-4. Households affected by IPV, which are more likely to be lower-resourced households,_^1-3 may be less likely is have their children enter early childhood education. However, even beyond resources, IPV-affected households may be less invested in supporting children’s education, or mothers in the household may be less able to manage early and even timely enrollment of young children in school. These types of maternal vulnerabilities have negative impacts on children aged 0-6 years, causing poor health outcomes and developmental delays^5-7,  including delayed language and delayed social-emotional development. However,  research also documents the value of early childhood education and intervention to help mitigate the negative effects of IPV exposures on children. Early childhood education is not widespread in India, but the recent National Education Policy update (2020) places importance on it and focuses on developing children's intellectual and socio-emotional abilities ^8-9. However, research on early childhood education in India and the impact of IPV on children's enrollment is lacking. The study uses data from India to examine if children aged 3 to 6 years in households affected by intimate partner violence (IPV) are less likely to be enrolled in school. The study considers two indicators of IPV: 1) married women's direct experiences of physical IPV and 2) married women's witnessing of physical IPV against their mothers. The study also considers the interaction of these two indicators to consider multi-generational IPV. 

Results from this study show that: 1) Before adjusting for women-level covariates in our logistic regressions, women’s experience of physical IPV(OR range: 0.89-0.90) in the household was found significantly associated with school enrollment of children aged 3 to 6 years; Women’s witnessing of IPV against their mothers was significantly associated with children’s school attendance (OR range: 1.03-1.19); 2) After further adjusting for women-level predictors, women's physical IPV experience did not have a significant effect on children’s early school attendance (OR = 0.91, 95%CI[0.83, 1.01]). In the households with women who witnessed IPV against their mothers, children aged 3 to 6 years were more likely to attend school (OR = 1.17, 95%CI[1.03,1.32]); 3) We additionally explored whether there was a significant interaction between our two primary predictors, but the interaction term was found to be insignificant (p>.7); 4) Additional significant household-level covariates positively associated with children’s enrollment in early childhood education include greater versus lesser wealth, scheduled and general caste versus scheduled tribe, Hindu compared with other religions, higher versus the lower number of children, and female versus male-led households. Significant women-level variables were older age, higher education, work for pay, and exposure to media. Child-level variables associated with the outcome were older age and female sex; 5) The year of the interview was a significant correlate with our outcome, which is not surprising as the COVID-19 pandemic did not affect 2019 data but was likely highly affecting 2021 data.

For this study, we used the fifth round of India's Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). 26,990 children in the age group of 3-6 years who belonged to a household sampled for the domestic violence module were considered in our analytic sample. The primary outcome of our study was the early education enrollment of children aged 3 to 6 years. We constructed a binary variable to capture that and coded it “1” if the child ever attended school in the year 2019-2020 and “0” if the child never attended school in the year 2019-2020. We considered two independent variables in our analysis: 1) women’s experiences of physical IPV and 2) women’s witnessing of IPV against their mothers. We captured women’s experience of physical IPV as a binary variable using questions in the survey that asked women if they had ever been a) pushed or shaken, b) slapped, c) punched, d) kicked or dragged, e) strangled or burnt, f) threatened with a knife/gun g) arm-twisted or hair-pulled by their husband in the past 12 months. We also created a binary variable to capture women’s witnesses of IPV between parents. In the survey, women were asked “As far as you know, did your father ever beat your mother?” We included a number of variables that could potentially confound the relationship between our independent variables and our outcome. At the household level, we included household wealth, place of residence, caste, religion, sex of household head, number of preschool-age children, and the year of interview. Variables related to women included age, the highest level of education, paid work in the past 12 months, exposure to media, and exposure to the internet. Finally, variables related to children included their age and sex. Both crude and multi-predictor logistic regressions were conducted. We performed all analyses using survey weights accounting for the primary sampling unit, and strata to restore the representativeness of the data and to get reliable estimates of standard errors.

This study contributes to not only research on IPV but also its effect on children’s early education enrollment, which has never been discovered in the context of India. The current study tests the association between physical IPV experiences of women and early education entry of children in the same household. After adjusting for women-level covariates, there is no significant association between physical IPV experiences and children’s enrollment in early education. However, our results indicate that children from households where women experienced physical IPV are less likely to enroll in early education. Results from both the crude and bivariate logistic regressions show a strong negative relationship between women’s physical IPV experience and children’s early education attendance. After adjusting for household- and child-level covariates, the significance decreases drastically, but still meets statistically significant thresholds. Household factors, such as wealth, religion, caste, and the number of preschool-age children in the household, may affect children’s school entry. After adjusting for women-level indicators, such as women’s education level, age, compensation, and media exposure, the significant effect disappears. These findings may indicate that women’s empowerment facilitates early entry in early childhood education programs and affecting women’s control may delay entry. Women witnessing IPV between parents is surprisingly related to higher odds of children, in the same household, entering early education programs. Within women who have witnessed parental IPV, the percentage of them who reported experiencing physical IPV is higher. One possible explanation for this can be that women who witnessed IPV between their parents as children may be more willing to advocate for children’s well-being in the households to prevent them from traumatizing by the experience eventually.

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