CC BY 4.0 Attribution 4.0 InternationalYuan, WeimanKadetz, PaulShen, XiaohuiHesketh, Therese2024-12-032024-12-032024-11-30Yuan, W., Kadetz, P.I., Shen, X. and Hesketh, T. (2024) ‘Women’s experience of domestic violence: a qualitative study in Hangzhou, China’, Journal of Family Violence. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-024-00789-7.0885-7482https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/14057https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-024-00789-7Paul Kadetz - ORCID: 0000-0002-2824-1856 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2824-1856Purpose There has been an increasing awareness of Domestic Violence (DV) in China following the announcement of the First Anti-Domestic Violence Law, in 2015 yet, there has been limited in-depth research concerning DV in China -with most focused on prevalence and risk factors. This study aims to capture female DV victims’ experience of violence in China, and identify the perceived causes and impacts of DV. Methods This qualitative research, conducted from June to September 2019 in Hangzhou, China, consisted of in-depth semi-structured interviews with 30 women who had experience of DV. Social cognitive theory served as the theoretical framework and Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis to analyze the data. Results The most common types of physical violence reported included hitting, throwing objects at women, choking, kicking, and slapping. Psychological violence consisted of insults and denigration, physical threats, and enforcement of social isolation. Sexual violence consisted of forced sexual behaviors against women’s willingness. All informants suffered physical or psychological impacts from the violence experienced. Perceived causes of DV included the perpetrator’s personality and childhood experience of violence; victims’ self-blame; conflict between couples that include those concerning raising children and household finances; family conflicts, especially with parents-in-law; social factors including rural-to-urban migration for work, social norms and constraints, and legal constraints to separation. 80% of informants reported that they still cohabit with their abusive partner. Conclusion Our findings provide insights into potential preventative measures for DV from individual, family, and social perspectives, and the need to de-stigmatize and support victims of DV in China.enOpen Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Domestic Violence Against WomenDV Risk FactorsChinaSocial Cognitive TheoryArticle