War, Gender, and Family Dynamics: A Couple Analysis

Abstract A growing demographic literature outlines how war exposure has long‐lasting and far‐reaching impacts on individuals. Yet the nascent literature leaves questions of whether and how the war exposures of key relatives, such as spouses, affect individuals. We use Demographic and Health Survey data ( N = 2,085 couples) to study the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970), extending insights into the link between women's childhood exposure to war and their elevated risk of intimate partner violence by considering the relevance of their spouse's war exposure. Hazard models demonstrate that the association between wives’ childhood war exposure and their risk of intimate partner violence is attributable to war‐exposed women marrying war‐exposed men. Mediation analyses examine pathways linking husbands’ war exposure to their risk of perpetrating violence. Together, the results underscore the value of efforts to understand how war continues to haunt both those who experience it, as well as those with whom their lives are intertwined.