The Gendered Impacts of Employment on Domestic Violence and Psychosocial Wellbeing

What is the relationship between employment and gender identity? This study seeks to generate evidence on the relationship between the experience of employment – as distinct from cash transfers alone – and intimate partner violence, intra-household bargaining power, and gendered perceptions of self-worth vis-à-vis one’s family and the community at large. We do so in the context of the Rohingya refugee camps, the largest refugee camps in the world, and a setting in which pervasive unemployment and strong gender norms mark daily refugee experience. We hope the findings of this work may inform the design and targeting of social protection policies for the world’s forcibly displaced and long-term unemployed in the developing world.