In rural Malawi, 72% of women once believed a husband was justified in hitting his wife under certain circumstances. By 2023, that number had dropped to just 28%—a quiet revolution mirrored across nearly 70 nations where, for the first time in generations, the social tide is turning against intimate partner violence. A landmark study by Irina Vartanova and her team at the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm analyzed survey responses from over 1.9 million women and more than half a million men across 69 countries, revealing a powerful global shift: where societies grow healthier, more educated, and more prosperous, the justification for violence against women is rapidly eroding. This isn’t just a change in opinion—it’s a transformation with real-world consequences.
Intimate partner violence affects an estimated 30% of women globally, leaving behind trauma, injury, depression, and too often, death. For decades, researchers have known that social norms play a critical role in perpetuating abuse—when communities accept violence as normal or justified, it persists. But now, for the first time at a global scale, researchers have shown that as those norms shift, actual violence declines in tandem. Between 1999 and 2024, 89% of countries saw a drop in men’s acceptance of partner violence, and 94% saw a drop among women. Crucially, the steepest declines in acceptance were matched by the fastest drops in reported violence—proof that changing minds can change lives.
The study, published in PLOS Global Public Health, also found a strong correlation between falling acceptance and improvements in the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI), which measures gains in education, life expectancy, and income. Countries like Ethiopia, Nepal, and Rwanda—where HDI scores have risen sharply—also saw some of the most dramatic shifts in attitudes. In Ethiopia, acceptance among women fell from 81% in 2000 to 33% by 2021. In Nepal, it dropped from 58% to 17% over a similar period. While gender-specific development gains showed a weaker link, the broader arc is clear: as societies advance, the belief that a man can ‘deserve’ to beat his wife collapses.
The researchers caution that correlation isn’t causation—this study doesn’t prove that development directly causes reduced violence—but the consistency is striking. "What stayed with us was how consistent the trend was," says co-author Pontus Strimling. "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." With domestic violence still affecting hundreds of millions, the findings offer a roadmap: invest in education, health, and living standards, and the cultural foundations of abuse begin to crumble. As Dr. Kimmo Ericksson puts it, the excuse for violence is in retreat—and that retreat is accelerating.