Who Won the U.S. Presidential Debate?

Economist Deniz Sanin was at Starbucks when a bag of specialty coffee from Rwanda caught her eye. "I Googled it right away," she recalled. "It turns out, there's been a coffee boom in the country."

Four years later, the Economics Department visiting scholar is finishing up a domestic violence study inspired by that chance encounter. Her research was made possible by the rapid expansion in the 21st century of Rwanda's cooperative mills, which hire women as seasonal workers to help process coffee cherries. Sanin's analyses show these wage earners are subject to less abuse by their husbands during the harvest season, just when they're busy at the mills.

"The results are not all cheerful," said Sanin, whose working paper is under review with the American Economic Review. "But the good news is, now we can use them to shape policy."

The development economist brings a longtime interest in women's issues, particularly outside of wealthier countries like the U.S. She grew up in Istanbul in an environment of "female empowerment," with an academic/public health expert mother and financial analyst father. The family proved a rarity in Turkey, which has persistent gender gaps in education, by prioritizing their daughter's schooling.

Sanin dove into the scholarship on domestic violence and women's financial empowerment while pursuing her Ph.D. at Georgetown University. She found a 2010 study which confirmed higher earnings meant lower rates of domestic violence for women in California. But in the developing world, research showed the threat of violence can actually increase for women with access to more money—via family resources or anti-poverty programs that offer cash transfers.

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