Linking Women’s Empowerment and Community Contexts To Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence from Ten West African Countries

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is experienced by over one-third of women in sub-Saharan Africa, yet evidence on the associations between women’s empowerment, community contexts, and IPV risk remains limited and inconsistent. This study examines the association between individual empowerment and community socioeconomic conditions and different forms of IPV across West Africa, using the Survey-based Women’s Empowerment Index. Demographic and Health Survey data (2018–2022) from ten West African countries were pooled, yielding a sample of 38,434 ever-married or cohabiting women who completed the domestic violence module. Multilevel binary logistic regression models estimated associations between empowerment dimensions, community characteristics, and physical, emotional, and sexual violence. IPV prevalence varied markedly by country, ranging from 9% in Senegal to 38% in Sierra Leone. Emotional violence was most common (25.9%), followed by physical (14.6%) and sexual violence (4.9%). Three distinct risk profiles emerged: emotional violence exhibited higher risk in highly educated communities, reflecting notable community-level associations; physical violence was primarily household-driven, with partner controlling behavior as the strongest predictor (OR = 4.66); and sexual violence was dominated by relationship control dynamics (OR = 5.80) despite high community-level clustering. Across all violence types, high empowerment attitudes were protective after adjusting for confounders, while wealth gradients consistently reduced risk. These findings reveal that IPV operates through distinct pathways depending on violence type, challenging one-size-fits-all prevention approaches. Effective IPV prevention in West Africa requires tailored interventions: community-level norm change for emotional violence, household-focused approaches for physical violence, and intensive relationship interventions for sexual violence, while simultaneously strengthening women’s empowerment and transforming harmful gender norms.