Spousal-abuse among Canadian immigrant women.

Abstract

The study aimed to investigate the rates of self-reported physical and emotional spousal abuse among recent Canadian-immigrant (CI) women compared to Canadian-born (CB) women. The study conducted secondary data analyses on the General Social Survey, 1999. A sample of CB (n = 3548) and CI (n = 313) women was drawn that included women 25 to 49 years of age who were currently married or in a common-law relationship. Person weights and bootstrapping estimates were used to estimate the 95% confidence intervals. The proportion of emotional spousal abuse was higher in CI (14.7%, 95% CI: 10.7-18.8%) compared to CB women (8.7%, 95% CI: 7.8-9.6%). However, the proportion of physical spousal abuse was not statistically different between two groups. Possible explanations are discussed setting direction for future research and services for immigrant women.