Intimate Partner Violence in the Great Recession

Daniel Schneider, Kristen Harknett, and Sara McLanahan have been working on this topic.  The result is not surprising, but nonetheless worthy of note:

In the United States, the Great Recession has been marked by severe negative shocks to market conditions. In this study, we combine longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study with Bureau of Labor Statistics data on local area unemployment rates to examine the relationship between adverse labor market conditions and intimate partner violence between 1999 and 2010. We find that rapidly worsening labor market conditions are associated with the prevalence of violent controlling behavior in marriage. These effects are most pronounced among whites and those with at least some secondary education. [emphasis added]  Worsening economic conditions significantly increase the risk that white mothers and more educated mothers will be in violent/controlling marriages rather than high quality marital unions.

The working paper is here (pdf).