Women exposed to war are known to be at higher risk of intimate partner violence, but is this simply because their husbands, too, endured war? Studying the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970), Yingyi Lin and Emily Smith-Greenaway show that husbands’ – not wives’ – war exposure drives later intimate partner violence.
Studies of various wars repeatedly show that women who live in a war zone face not only immediate violence but also elevated risks long after conflicts end. In a recent study (Lin and Smith-Greenaway 2026), we revisited this finding from a new angle. We asked: “Does women’s war exposure increase their risk of experiencing domestic violence because of their own exposure to war, or because they marry men who were exposed to war?” Answering this question is critical for designing effective interventions. To date, most programs to reduce domestic violence in post-conflict settings have focused primarily on women (Spangaro et al. 2021).
The Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970)
The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War, began in 1967 when the Igbo-dominated Eastern region declared itself independent, and the federal government responded with military force to suppress the secessionist movement, leading to war between the Nigerian government and the secessionist state of Biafra. Sparked by ethnic tensions, political instability, and the fight for control over oil resources (Uche 2008), the conflict led to devastating humanitarian crises, including widespread famine and mass casualties, as well as economic devastation.
Given that the war was a relatively short–lived (July 1967–January 1970), geographically concentrated ethnic conflict, ethnicity (Igbo) and birth cohort (conceived or born during the war years) function as fixed markers of war exposure, allowing us to analyze wives’ and husbands’ war exposure separately in nationally representative couple data. Specifically, we analyzed the 2008 Demographic and Health Survey couple data, allowing us to account for both wives’ and husbands’ experiences and traits when studying intimate partner violence. As the survey focuses on reproductive age women (15–49 years old) and their spouses, and given the timing of the war, these data allow us to capture wives and husbands who were exposed to war at some point between being in utero and early adolescence (age 12 for wives) and late adolescence and early adulthood (age 22 for husbands), respectively. Figure 1 shows that, in the data, 11% of wives and 19% of husbands were exposed to war in early life.
Whose war exposure matters: hers or his, and why?
Women are significantly more likely to experience intimate partner violence in their marriage if they or their husband were exposed to war in early life (Figure 2), with a larger difference in this probability by husbands’ war exposure than by wives’ own exposure. By age 49, the probability of experiencing domestic violence is about 15% higher for war-exposed wives than for those not exposed. However, by the same age, the probability is more than 20% higher for wives whose husbands were exposed to war in early life compared to those whose husbands were not.
This descriptive pattern, suggesting that husbands’ war exposure may matter more, persists in multivariate models. Indeed, wives’ war-related risk of experiencing domestic violence appears to be driven entirely by their husbands’ war exposure. That is, the apparent link between women’s exposure to the Nigerian Civil War and their risk of experiencing intimate partner violence disappears once we take into account their husbands’ exposure to war. For women with a war-exposed husband, the risk of experiencing intimate partner violence is increased by 45%.
Among a range of potential explanations – including husbands’ experience of war-related family loss, their human capital accumulation (such as education and employment), and their marital characteristics (including fertility, child mortality, and polygamy) – men’s risk behaviors emerge as particularly important. Alcohol use helps explain part of the association linking husbands’ war exposure and their perpetration of violence against their partners.
Where do we go from here?
These findings highlight the importance of targeting men in post-conflict interventions, contrary to current efforts that have focused primarily on war-exposed women, as men’s wartime experiences play a central role in shaping their risk of perpetrating violent behavior years later. The results also point to alcohol consumption as a key driver of intimate partner violence, suggesting that interventions addressing substance use may be especially effective.
At the same time, important questions remain. Alcohol use only partially explains the link between men’s war exposure and their violent behavior; further research is needed to identify additional mechanisms. Understanding these pathways will be critical for developing more effective policies and interventions. Taken together, the findings underscore the potential for the collateral damage of war to reverberate within families and intimate relationships long after a conflict has ended.
References
Ajefu, Joseph B., and Daniela Casale. 2025. “Long-Term Effects of Childhood Exposure to War on Domestic Violence.” The European Journal of Development Research 37: 124–51. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-024-00659-4.
Torrisi, Orsola. 2023. “Young-Age Exposure to Armed Conflict and Women’s Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence.” Journal of Marriage and Family 85: 7–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12876.
Lin, Yingyi, and Emily Smith-Greenaway. 2026. “War, Gender, and Family Dynamics: A Couple Analysis,” Population and Development Review https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.70062
Spangaro, Jo, Chye Toole-Anstey, Catherine L. MacPhail, Delia C. Rambaldini-Gooding, Lynne Keevers, and Claudia Garcia-Moreno. 2021. “The Impact of Interventions to Reduce Risk and Incidence of Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Violence in Conflict and Post-Conflict States and Other Humanitarian Crises in Low and Middle Income Countries: A Systematic Review.” Conflict and Health 15 (1): 86. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13031-021-00417-x.
Uche, Chibuike. 2008. “Oil, British Interests and The Nigerian Civil War.” The Journal of African History 49 (1): 111–35. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853708003393.