Foreign Aid and Intimate Partner Violence Norms: Evidence from Ethiopia

This paper investigates the impact of foreign aid on beliefs towards intimate partner violence (IPV) in Ethiopia. We match geo-referenced data on World Bank foreign aid projects from 1995 to 2014 with geo-coded survey data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Adopting a difference-in-differences strategy that leverages spatial and temporal variation between survey rollout and aid project implementation, we find that women exposed to foreign aid projects are less likely to justify partner violence. The effects on IPV acceptance are more pronounced for gender-targeted projects. When exploring potential mechanisms, we find evidence that women's education and access to information are key pathways through which aid influences attitudes toward IPV. These results underscore the role of foreign aid as a crucial mechanism for disseminating information, empowering women with the knowledge needed to change perceptions and attitudes towards gender norms, and thereby reducing the justification of domestic violence.