Roughly 1 in 3 women worldwide, about 30%, have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner or sexual violence from someone else at some point in their lives. That figure, drawn from data across 168 countries, has barely changed since the year 2000, declining by only 0.2% per year over two decades. An estimated 840 million women globally have faced partner or sexual violence during their lifetime.
Global Numbers at a Glance
Among women aged 15 to 49 who have been in a relationship, 27% report physical or sexual violence by a partner at least once since age 15. In any given year, the numbers are lower but still staggering: 316 million women, or 11% of those aged 15 and older, were subjected to physical or sexual violence by a partner in the most recent 12-month period studied. These estimates come from a WHO analysis covering 2000 to 2023, and the consistency of the numbers over more than two decades is itself a finding. Progress has been, in the WHO’s own words, “painfully slow.”
Prevalence in the United States
In the U.S., the numbers track closely with global averages. More than 1 in 3 women (34%) have experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime. That translates to nearly 43.5 million women. Breaking it down by type:
- Physical violence: 22.5% of women
- Contact sexual violence: 19.7% of women
- Stalking: 12.2% of women
These categories overlap, meaning many survivors experienced more than one form of abuse. In the 12 months before the most recent CDC survey, 5.2% of U.S. women (about 6.7 million) experienced at least one of these forms of violence from a partner. That one-year figure is useful because it captures not just historical experience but ongoing risk: millions of women are living with active abuse in any given year.
When Violence Typically Begins
Domestic violence often starts earlier than people assume. About 16 million women in the U.S. report that they first experienced intimate partner violence before the age of 18. Early exposure to relationship violence can shape health and relationship patterns for decades, making the age of first experience an important piece of the picture that raw prevalence numbers alone don’t capture.
Violence During Pregnancy
Pregnancy does not protect against abuse, and in some cases it coincides with new or escalating violence. Among women with a live birth across nine U.S. jurisdictions studied between 2016 and 2022, 5.4% experienced intimate partner violence during pregnancy. Emotional abuse was the most common form at 5.2%, while physical violence affected 1.5% and sexual violence affected 1.0%. These rates likely undercount the problem, since women in the most dangerous situations may be less likely to disclose abuse during prenatal care.
What the Numbers Don’t Capture
The headline statistics focus on physical and sexual violence because those are easiest to define and measure consistently across countries. Emotional abuse, financial control, and coercive behavior are harder to quantify but affect a much larger share of women. Most large-scale surveys acknowledge this gap. When emotional abuse is measured alongside physical forms, prevalence rises substantially, but global estimates remain inconsistent because countries define and track psychological abuse differently.
Reporting gaps also affect what we know. An analysis by the Council on Criminal Justice found that roughly 70% of aggravated domestic violence incidents are reported to law enforcement. That means the remaining 30% never appear in police data at all. And when researchers compared law enforcement records to survey-based estimates, the official counts in major U.S. cities undercounted aggravated domestic violence incidents by 29% to 53%. Survey-based prevalence numbers are more reliable than crime statistics, but even surveys depend on survivors being willing and able to disclose.
The Deadliest Outcomes
Domestic violence is a leading context for homicide against women. In 2021, 34% of female murder victims in the United States were killed by an intimate partner, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. That makes a current or former partner the single most common perpetrator category for women who are murdered. For comparison, men are far more likely to be killed by acquaintances or strangers.
The Economic Toll
The costs extend well beyond the immediate harm. The CDC estimates the lifetime economic burden of intimate partner violence at $103,767 per female victim, adding up to a population-wide cost of nearly $3.6 trillion across all U.S. adults with a history of victimization. Medical costs account for 59% of that total ($2.1 trillion), followed by lost productivity among both victims and perpetrators at 37% ($1.3 trillion). Government sources, including public insurance and criminal justice systems, absorb an estimated $1.3 trillion of the total burden. These figures make intimate partner violence not just a public health crisis but one of the most expensive forms of interpersonal harm in the country.