Gender Equality, Zero-Sum Gender Beliefs, and Women's Safety

In countries higher in gender inequality, women experience more danger including higher rates of intimate partner violence (Johnson et al., 2024), more sexual violence (Yodanis, 2004), higher homicide rates (Heirigs & Moore, 2018; Narvey et al., 2021), and higher rates of maternal mortality (Bagade et al., 2022). Accordingly, women in less gender equal countries tend to endorse more protective gender norms, such as benevolently sexist beliefs that men should protect the women in their lives (Glick et al., 2000; Zawisza et al., 2025). These associations, however, are generally small-to-moderate in size (Johnson et al., 2024). Further, some findings are mixed, showing either null associations between gender equality and women’s safety (Chon, 2013) or paradoxically higher levels of violence against women in more gender equal countries (i.e., the “Nordic Paradox”; Gracia & Merlo, 2016). Here, we examine a potential moderator of the links between country-level gender equality and women’s safety, to clarify the mixed findings. Specifically, we examine whether men’s zero-sum beliefs about gender play an important role in shaping the links between gender equality and women’s safety. Zero-sum beliefs about gender are beliefs that women’s gains are equal to men’s losses (Jurek et al., 2025). These beliefs tend to activate competitive mindsets that can promote outgroup hostility and aggression (Davidai & Tepper, 2023). Moreover, such beliefs are relatively independent of the actual scarcity or plentitude of resources (Andrews-Fearon & Davidai, 2023), suggesting that men may hold high zero-sum beliefs about gender regardless of the extent to which women and men actually compete for access to jobs, economic resources, education, and political power in a given context. For example, the country-level correlation between gender equality and zero-sum beliefs is relatively modest (Jurek et al., 2025), indicating that objective, between-gender differences in resource control (i.e., gender equality indices) are related to, but distinct from, subjective perceptions of between-gender competition (i.e., zero-sum beliefs). Recently, Jurek et al. (2025) validated a brief measure of zero-sum beliefs about gender for use in cross-cultural analyses. Notably, men report more hostile sexism toward women, and weaker intentions to engage in collective action for gender equality, in countries characterized by higher zero-sum beliefs about gender. Hostile sexism, in turn, is associated with more violence against women (Agadullina et al., 2022; Bareket & Fiske, 2022). The validation of this brief measure of zero-sum beliefs allows for analyses examining whether links between objective, structural factors – such as country-level gender equality – and women’s safety outcomes are moderated by a psychological factor, e.g., men’s feelings of between-gender competition with women. We aim to examine whether men’s zero-sum beliefs about gender moderate the association between country-level gender equality (GGGI) and women’s perceived, felt, and actual safety, as well as their endorsement of protective gender norms. Specifically, we posit that gender inequality is a risk factor for women’s safety such that women are less safe – and feel less safe – in countries lower (versus higher) in gender equality. This link, however, should be moderated by men’s zero-sum beliefs: Women’s endangerment should be more strongly, negatively linked to gender equality in contexts in which men view women as zero-sum competitors for access to resources and power.