This paper examines the impact of Bihar’s 2016 alcohol prohibition on physical intimate partner violence (IPV) against women. Exploiting variation in pre-prohibition alcohol exposure across villages and census wards, I employ a difference-in-differences design with continuous treatment intensity using the UDAYA dataset. I find that the prohibition significantly reduced physical IPV, with a 10 percentage point higher pre-prohibition alcohol exposure being associated with a 2.33 percentage point dampening of the post-prohibition rise in physical abuse, on average. The protective effect is strongest among the poorest households, those with less-educated husbands, and women who are equally or more educated than their spouses, consistent with resource theory and male-backlash theory. The effect is further concentrated among mothers and women who witnessed parental violence, suggesting that the prohibition’s benefits accrue disproportionately to women with constrained outside options. An enforcement proxy based on urban, non-affluent households reveals amplified effects across all outcomes, and placebo tests using Uttar Pradesh yield null results, supporting the causal interpretation.
