Women's Status and Risk of Homicide Victimization: An Analysis With Data Disaggregated by Victim-Offender Relationship

Several feminist theories predict that women's socioeconomic status, both absolute status and their status relative to men, influences the prevalence of violence against women, with some suggesting a positive correlation and others a negative one. Although each theory provides insight into the possible causal connection between women's status, gender inequality, and violence, empirical tests of these relationships are inconclusive. The present study addresses this issue by using a cross-sectional design with 2000 census and crime data to assess the impact of women's absolute status and gender inequality along educational, employment, income, and occupational dimensions and their risk of homicide victimization by intimate partners and nonintimates. The findings indicate that women's absolute status is significantly correlated with female homicide victimization rates by intimate partners. However, tests for equality of regression coefficients between the intimate and nonintimate partner models suggest that these differences may be attributed to random chance.