A study of more than 60 countries shows those with faster declines in the social acceptability of intimate partner violence against women also tend to have had faster reductions in rates of such violence, as well as faster human development improvements. Irina Vartanova of the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Global Health.
Intimate partner violence affects hundreds of millions of women worldwide, with severe and long-lasting health impacts, such as injury, depression, anxiety, and death. Studies have shown that social norms justifying such violence are tightly linked with its prevalence. Research also suggests that, in the past decade, the acceptability of intimate partner violence—defined as the belief that a husband is entitled to hit or beat his wife in at least one circumstance—has declined in most countries.
However, questions remain around what societal changes may underlie reduced acceptability and whether there are corresponding reductions in violence. To clarify, Vartanova and colleagues analyzed survey data on attitudes towards intimate partner violence among 1,920,105 women in 69 countries and 539,470 men in 60 countries, collected between 1999 and 2024 by the long-running Demographic and Health Surveys Program. They also examined country-level data on rates of physical intimate partner violence against women.
They found that acceptability of intimate partner violence against women declined in 89 percent of countries among men and 94 percent of countries among women. Countries with faster acceptability declines tended to have faster reductions in rates of such violence.
The researchers also looked at trends in the United Nations' Human Development Index, which tracks overall improvements in education, health, and economic prosperity, and the Gender Development Index, which captures gender gaps in human development. They found that countries with faster overall human development improvements had faster declines in acceptability of intimate partner violence. Gender-specific gains were less strongly tied to acceptability.
The authors note that the study design did not allow them to confirm a cause-effect relationship between human development improvements and reduced violence. However, the findings do align with efforts to invest in such improvements.
Corresponding author Dr Kimmo Ericksson says: "Domestic violence against women is a global problem, but the attitudes that excuse it are in retreat. Over the past 25 years, almost all of the nearly 70 countries we studied have seen a drop in the number of people who think a man is justified in beating his wife. This decline has gone hand in hand with broad gains in human development: schooling, health, and living standards."
Co-author Pontus Strimling notes: "What stayed with us was how consistent the trend was. Almost everywhere we looked, acceptance of wife-beating fell among both women and men. And where attitudes changed fastest, women reported the largest drops in actual violence."
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Citation: Vartanova I, Eriksson K, Strimling P (2026) Trends in the acceptability and prevalence of intimate partner violence: Evidence from Demographic and Health Surveys, 1999–2024. PLOS Glob Public Health 6(6): e0006628. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0006628
Author Countries: Sweden
Funding: This research was supported by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Grant No. 2022.0191 to PS). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
