Women’s economic empowerment is an essential component of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Not only is it an end in itself but it has further been promoted for its potential to create positive externalities, including the reduction of intimate partner violence (IPV). However, the link between economic empowerment and the risk of IPV remains theoretically ambiguous. Marital dependency theory predicts that women with more financial resources hold higher bargaining power and are in a better position to leave potentially abusive relationships. Conversely, Resource theory posits that an increase in women’s financial resources may clash with traditional gender roles, which may prompt their partner to reassert their status through violent means. In light of this debate, we conducted a meta-analysis of 19 randomized controlled trials assessing the impact of economic empowerment interventions on IPV. Based on a total sample size of 44,772 participants and robust variance estimation, our meta-analysis shows that women’s economic empowerment was associated with a significant reduction in the pooled measure of emotional, sexual, and physical IPV. We further documented tentative evidence suggesting that these effects may be amplified when additional gender sensitization training is included in such programs. Despite the overall positive effects, some included studies reported increases in IPV, primarily in the form of partners exerting controlling behavior and dominance over financial resources. Our results therefore emphasize a need to prioritize women’s safety in the process of designing economic empowerment programs and to closely monitor the potential risk of conflict and violence within beneficiaries’ households.

赋予妇女经济权力是联合国可持续发展目标的重要组成部分。它不仅本身就是目的，而且还因其创造积极外部性的潜力而得到进一步推广，包括减少亲密伴侣暴力（IPV）。然而，经济赋权与 IPV 风险之间的联系在理论上仍然模棱两可。婚姻依赖理论预测，拥有更多财务资源的女性拥有更高的议价能力，并且更有能力离开可能受到虐待的关系。相反，资源理论假设女性财务资源的增加可能与传统的性别角色发生冲突，这可能会促使她们的伴侣通过暴力手段重新确立自己的地位。鉴于这场辩论，我们对 19 项随机对照试验进行了荟萃分析，评估了经济赋权干预对 IPV 的影响。基于 44,772 名参与者的总样本量和稳健的方差估计，我们的荟萃分析表明，女性的经济赋权与情感、性和身体 IPV 的汇总测量显着降低有关。我们进一步记录了初步证据，表明当此类计划中包含额外的性别敏感培训时，这些影响可能会被放大。尽管总体上产生了积极影响，但一些纳入的研究报告了 IPV 的增加，主要表现为合作伙伴对财务资源施加控制行为和支配地位。因此，我们的研究结果强调，在设计经济赋权计划的过程中需要优先考虑妇女的安全，并密切监测受益人家庭中潜在的冲突和暴力风险。