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The Effects of Acculturation on Intimate Partner Violence Among Chinese Immigrants in New York City

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Abstract

Little research has examined the role of acculturation in the determination of intimate partner violence (IPV) among Chinese immigrants in the United States. Data on 166 IPV Chinese immigrant couples obtained from a Chinese American community organization were analyzed for this study. Findings show that the level of acculturation and socioeconomic status were associated with severity, frequency, length, and type of abuse committed by Chinese immigrant men although not all factors played an equally important role in explaining IPV. Certain Chinese immigrant victim characteristics, such as having social networks, were also related to the experience of IPV.

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Notes

  1. 1 Other ethnic groups consist of Whites (14 %), Hispanics (2 %), Blacks (1 %) and other non-Asians (2.4 %).

  2. 2 The length of abuse was originally constructed by GOH as a 10-category ordinal variable (ranging from1 month to 5 years) with a large variation in the length of time. This non-equidistant progression of values rendered a meaningful analysis of the information impossible. Thus, we transformed the measure into a binary that breaks up the sample into two comparable halves. This re-coding allows an easy and meaningful reading of the coefficients.

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  1. Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The Graduate Center: CUNY, 524 West 59th Street, New York, NY, 10019, USA

    C. Kim & H. E. Sung

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Table 3 Descriptive statistics for study variables (N = 166)
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Kim, C., Sung, H.E. The Effects of Acculturation on Intimate Partner Violence Among Chinese Immigrants in New York City. J Fam Viol 31, 325–336 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-015-9761-3

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