Capitalism and Femicide: an Empirical Inquiry

ABSTRACT This study investigates the claim that capitalism (or neoliberal reforms) is associated with higher rates of femicide, which is often identified as an outcome of the capitalist exploitation of women in parts of the feminist literature. Employing a panel of 163 countries observed between 1990 and 2023, we find no significantly positive relationship between the Economic Freedom of the World index and different measures that approximate the concept of femicide. If anything, we partially find a significantly negative effect, particularly when not conditioning on income, which likely constitutes an important long‐run transmission channel of the impact of pro‐market institutions for reducing deadly violence against women. Even for countries with a large textile exporting sector—an industry that is heavily associated with the economic exploitation of women—more economic freedom is not significantly related to comparatively higher rates of femicide.