School bullies go on to become wife beaters, claim researchers

New research suggests that school bullies are more likely to become wife beaters in later life.

A study has found that an astonishing one in four women will experience violence from partners, and 40% of men admit they have carried out domestic violence.

The new findings indicate that men who admit to bullying other kids in childhood have an increased risk of intimate-partner violence, or IPV.

Kathryn Falb from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, US, who led the study said: 'Recent evidence strongly indicates that bullying peers in school may share common prior causes with IPV perpetration.'

The researchers also took into account other factors like exposure to community violence, childhood experiences of abuse and participation in delinquency.

The survey spoke to 1,491 men aged 18 to 35. Sixteen per cent said they had committed physical or sexual partner violence in the last year, and of those, 38% said they had frequently bullied others when they were younger.

Kathryn Falb concluded that 'Reducing bullying may cut violence.'

What do you think?
Does this come as no surprise, that bullying and violent behaviour as a child is likely to carry on into adulthood?