Family violence is a pervasive social issue, which warrants attention from policy makers. Theories such as nested ecological theory and general strain theory suggest that family violence increases during times of economic hardship. Even so, historical data from the most recent recession do not suggest an increase in family violence during this period of increased unemployment. Other theories, such as status inconsistency theory and household bargaining theory focus on intimate partner violence. These theories suggest that considering an intimate partner’s combination of employment statuses best predicts intimate partner violence. This dissertation utilizes crime data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) as well as unemployment data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to test the relationship between employment status and family violence. The results suggest that when a family experiences unemployment, they are more likely to experience family violence, repeat family violence, and a co-occurrence of family violence. Additionally, compared to employed couples, unemployed couples are most likely to experience violence. The results primarily support nested ecological theory and general strain theory, although additional results do support household bargaining theory and status inconsistency theory for low and high levels of education individuals respectively.
