Bring the subjective back in: Resource and husband-to-wife physical assault among Chinese couples in Hong Kong

Abstract

Resource theory constitutes important explanations of spousal violence in culturally diverse societies. This article extends the theory by adding several subjective indicators: husband’s financial strain and the couple’s appraisal of each other’s financial and nonfinancial contributions to family. We examined the role of these subjective dimensions of resource in spousal violence against the backdrop of other predictors, including the husband’s absolute socioeconomic resources, the wife’s economic dependence, and relative resource differences between the husband and wife. The findings not only partly support absolute and relative resource theories but also suggest the salient role of subjective indicators of resources on husband-to-wife physical assault.