Devika Hazra

Around the world, expanding women’s access to work is a cornerstone of gender equality and economic development. The World Bank has even called it one of the five most critical policy priorities for closing gender gaps. Paid work can improve household incomes, delay early marriages, expand social networks, and boost women’s confidence and decision-making power. In theory, more jobs for women should translate into safer, fairer households.

Yet the reality inside many homes tells a more unsettling story: economic empowerment can sometimes invite violence instead of preventing it.

Why Employment Might Help or Harm

• Positive pathways – Jobs can boost a woman’s bargaining power and outside options, ease household stress by improving finances, and expand her social networks and confidence – all of which can reduce the risk of violence.
• Negative pathways – Changes in traditional household dynamics or income patterns can disrupt long-standing expectations and create tension. This can challenge the male identity as a breadwinner. In some cases, these shifts may lead to controlling behaviors or violence as partners adjust to new financial roles or resources. Social scientists call this status inconsistency or male backlash.

What the Evidence Shows

Studies from Sub-Saharan Africa, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Turkey, Spain, and even Sweden show that sudden gains in women’s employment can spark aggression instead of progress.

Take Cameroon, for example. Along a nearly invisible colonial border, history created a natural experiment. In former British territories, girls were sent to school and women gained access to wage jobs decades earlier than their neighbors under French rule. Today, those very areas – despite their economic advantages – see 30% higher rates of intimate partner violence (Guarnieri and Rainer, 2018). The same job opportunities that lift women’s status can, paradoxically, provoke men who feel their breadwinner role slipping away.

This pattern is not unique. India’s rural employment guarantee scheme, which boosted female participation but, in some settings, led to higher rates of violence at home as men perceived their status eroding (Kjelsrud and Sjurgard, 2022). Further evidence from India shows that women in paid employment face significantly higher levels of intimate partner violence than those engaged only in domestic work, with no sign that the autonomy gained through earnings lowers their risk (Dhanaraj and Mahambare, 2022). In Bangladesh, data reveal that women who work are more likely to face domestic violence – especially those with less education or who married young (Heath, 2014; Rahman, 2011). These patterns underscore how employment gains can heighten risk when combined with other vulnerabilities.

When Cambodia opened its economy to global trade, many men lost paid work while more women stepped into the labor force. That sudden shift in who brought home an income led to more violence at home (Erten and Keskin, 2024). In Turkey, a sudden wave of refugee arrivals reshaped local job markets – pushing many women out of paid work without affecting men’s jobs. This was accompanied by reductions in reported domestic violence, showing how shifts in women’s employment can briefly ease household tensions (Erten and Keskin, 2021). Taken together, the cases of Cambodia and Turkey reveal the sensitivity of violence risk to rapid economic change.

In Spain, shifts in women’s employment affect domestic violence differently depending on local traditions. In areas with a nuclear-family legacy, lower female unemployment relative to men increased IPV, while regions with stem-family traditions saw weaker or even reversed effects (Tur-Prats, 2017).

Even in Sweden – often a benchmark for gender equality – increases in women’s potential earnings were linked to spikes in domestic violence and destructive male behavior (Ericsson, 2019). These findings echo the male backlash hypothesis: when social norms lag behind economic change, some men use violence to reclaim lost authority.

But backlash is not inevitable!

In Ethiopia, women’s employment was found to significantly reduce the risk of domestic violence across physical, sexual, and emotional dimensions (Jima Bedaso, 2025). Complementing this, a randomized field experiment found that while women’s improved job prospects did not change physical or sexual violence long-term, it did reduce emotional abuse in the short run (Kotsadam and Villanger, 2025). And in the United States as well as the United Kingdom (Anderberg et. al. 2016), local female employment gains have been shown to reduce intimate partner violence when combined with social supports and legal protections. The pattern is clear: context matters – cultural norms, divorce stigma, male unemployment, and community attitudes all shape whether empowerment leads to safety or backlash.

Beyond Jobs: Building Safer Pathways to Empowerment

These findings remind us that while economic opportunities for women are essential, they are not a silver bullet. In a setting where divorce is heavily stigmatized or financially unfeasible, women’s outside options may be too weak to deter abuse, even with a paycheck. Where gender norms remain rigid and enforcement of domestic violence laws is weak, male backlash can undo hard-won gains.

To ensure that women’s labor-market gains translate into safer homes, policymakers and development practitioners should:

• Anchor economic programs in strong legal frameworks.
  Strengthen enforcement of domestic violence laws, fund shelters, and expand counseling and legal aid.
• Invest in initiatives to shift norms.
  Community campaigns, school-based curricula, and men’s engagement programs can shift harmful attitudes about masculinity and breadwinner roles.
• Design programs with sensitivity to power dynamics.
  Decide carefully who receives wages or benefits, frame programs as household support rather than threats to male identity, and include community-level dialogue.
• Provide economic exit options.
  Access to credit, savings groups, and social protection can help women leave abusive relationships safely.
• Evaluate and adapt.
  Monitor programs for unintended consequences and adjust strategies where backlash emerges.

Expanding women’s employment opportunities is a powerful driver of gender equality, but it cannot stand alone. Real progress depends on pairing economic gains with strong legal protections, community support, and services that safeguard those at risk. By aligning opportunity with safety – and ensuring households and communities evolve alongside labor markets – we can make sure that empowerment at work translates into security, dignity, and lasting change at home.

References

Anderberg, D., Rainer, H., Wadsworth, J., & Wilson, T. (2016). Unemployment and domestic violence: Theory and evidence. The economic journal, 126(597), 1947-1979.

Dhanaraj, S., & Mahambare, V. (2022). Male backlash and female guilt: women’s employment and intimate partner violence in urban India. Feminist economics, 28(1), 170-198.

Jima Bedaso, F. (2025). Her job, her safety? Domestic violence and women’s economic empowerment in Ethiopia. Journal of Applied Economics, 28(1), 2465100.

Ericsson, S. (2019). Backlash: Undesirable effects of female economic empowerment. Lund University, Department of Economics and Centre of Economic Demography, Working Paper 2019, 12, 1-42.

Erten, B., & Keskin, P. (2021). Female employment and intimate partner violence: evidence from Syrian refugee inflows to Turkey. Journal of Development Economics, 150, 102607.

Erten, B., & Keskin, P. (2024). Trade-offs? The impact of WTO accession on intimate partner violence in Cambodia. Review of Economics and Statistics, 106(2), 322-333.

Guarnieri, E., & Rainer, H. (2018). Female empowerment and male backlash.

Heath, R. (2014). Women’s access to labor market opportunities, control of household resources, and domestic violence: Evidence from Bangladesh. World Development, 57, 32-46.

Kjelsrud, A., & Sjurgard, K. V. (2022). Public work and private violence. The Journal of Development Studies, 58(9), 1791-1806.

Kotsadam, A., & Villanger, E. (2025). Jobs and intimate partner violence: Evidence from a field experiment in Ethiopia. Journal of Human Resources, 60(2), 469-495.

Rahman, M., Hoque, M. A., & Makinoda, S. (2011). Intimate partner violence against women: Is women’s empowerment a reducing factor? A study from a national Bangladeshi sample. Journal of Family Violence, 26(5), 411-420.

Tur-Prats, A. (2017). Unemployment and intimate-partner violence: A gender-identity approach.