Exploring Gender Differences in Fear of Domestic Violence.

IMMIGRANTS; ASSAULT & battery; AGE distribution; FEAR; DOMESTIC violence; QUANTITATIVE research; CRIME victims; SEX distribution; SEX crimes; SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC factors

The fear of physical and sexual violence within the family context has not received much attention in the literature. Drawing on a national sample of 11,584 respondents from the 2012 German Victimization Survey, this study examined the prevalence of fear of domestic violence (DV) as compared with fear of physical and sexual crimes in general; identified gender-specific prevalence of fear of DV; and determined socio-demographic factors that predicted fear of DV for men and women. The study found both males and females reported similar rates of fear of both physical and sexual assault victimization in the family context. Younger persons and people with migration backgrounds were more likely to express fear of DV than older persons and German respondents without migration backgrounds, respectively. Future research should examine the fear of domestic violence more systematically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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