An Interactional Perspective on the Relationship of Immigration to Intimate Partner Violence in a Representative Sample of Help-Seeking Women

Abstract

This article reports a study of the possible impact of immigration on interactional aspects of intimate partner violence (IPV) among help-seeking women. Are there differences concerning (a) IPV categories, (b) IPV severity, frequency, duration, regularity, and predictability, (c) guilt and shame, (d) partners’ ethnicity, and (e) children being exposed to interparental IPV, adjusted for sociodemographic variables? A representative sample of IPV help-seeking women ( N = 157) recruited from family counseling, police, and shelters in Norway were interviewed. Multivariate analyses showed that immigrant women had lower income, were less likely to use alcohol and had increased likelihood of having an immigrant partner. No differences were found concerning IPV severity, frequency, guilt, shame, or victimization pertaining to different IPV categories. Immigrant women were better at predicting physical IPV but had an increased risk of physical injury related to sexual IPV. Children’s risk of being exposed to interparental IPV increased if parents were immigrants. Psychosocial consequences of being an immigrant such as having a lower sociodemographic rank rather than IPV aspects constituted the main difference between ethnic Norwegian and immigrant help-seeking women.