Do Education and Employment Protect Against Intimate Partner Violence? Insights from the South African Demographic and Health Survey

Background: Education and employment are widely promoted as pathways to reducing intimate partner violence (IPV) through enhanced economic independence and bargaining power. However, evidence from settings characterised by entrenched gender inequalities suggests that these structural factors may not uniformly translate into protection. This study examines whether education and employment are associated with women’s experiences of IPV in South Africa. Methods: This study utilised nationally representative data from the South Africa Demographic and Health Survey (N = 2354). Education and employment were used as structural proxies for women’s socioeconomic positioning. Survey-adjusted logistic regression models were employed to estimate associations between these factors and lifetime IPV, controlling for key sociodemographic characteristics. Given the cross-sectional design and the use of lifetime IPV alongside contemporaneous measures of education and employment, findings are interpreted as associative rather than causal. Results: Education and employment were not significantly associated with women’s likelihood of experiencing IPV. Women with these characteristics were not less likely to report emotional, physical, or sexual violence compared to those without them. IPV prevalence was higher among women aged 25–34, those with secondary education, and those in lower wealth households. Marital status emerged as a strong correlate, with separated and divorced women facing substantially higher odds of IPV. Discussion: The absence of a significant association suggests that education and employment alone may be insufficient to reduce IPV risk in contexts where gender norms and relational power imbalances remain entrenched. These findings may also reflect the limitations of using structural indicators as proxies for empowerment, as such measures do not capture decision-making power, control over resources, or intra-household dynamics. Conclusions: Interventions to reduce IPV should extend beyond improving women’s access to education and employment to address relational, normative, and structural drivers of violence. Multidimensional approaches that incorporate gender-transformative strategies and strengthen women’s substantive agency are likely to be more effective.