When War Comes Home: The Effect of Combat Service on Domestic Violence

Resul Cesur; Joseph J. Sabia

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00541

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When War Comes Home: The Effect of Combat Service on Domestic Violence

Resul Cesur¹; Joseph J. Sabia²

¹ University of Connecticut · ² University of New Hampshire and U.S. Military Academy

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2016 open access

Abstract This study is the first to estimate the effect of war service in the Global War on Terrorism on domestic violence. We exploit a natural experiment in overseas deployment assignment among active-duty servicemen by relying on theoretical and empirical evidence that, conditional on military rank and occupation, deployment assignments are orthogonal to the propensity for violence. Our results show that assignment to combat substantially increases the probability of intimate partner violence and child abuse. Descriptive evidence suggests that the effects may be explained in part by the stress- and substance use–related consequences of war.

DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00541
Volume: 98 (2)
Pages: 209-225
Language: en
Export: BibTeX
Sources: openalex crossref