What are the odds of being killed by an intimate partner?
Evidence quality 4.38/5
Eight-dimension review score against the quality rubric . Each dimension scored 1–5.
- D1 Source grounding
- 5/5
- D2 Source authority
- 5/5
- D3 Arithmetic
- 5/5
- D4 Uncertainty
- 4/5
- D5 Scope
- 2/5
- D6 Prose
- 5/5
- D7 Perception honesty
- 4/5
- D8 Caveat completeness
- 5/5
Lifetime probability · lifetime, US adult
1 in 1,767
0.06% lifetime chance
Most people underestimate this.
range 1 in 2,500 to 1 in 1,176
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≈ As likely as
Perceived
Intimate-partner homicide occupies a peculiar position in public risk perception. It is simultaneously the subject of intense advocacy attention and strikingly absent from standard crime-fear polls, which tend to ask about stranger violence. Most women, when asked informally, place their risk of being killed by a partner somewhere between "negligible" and "something that happens to other people." Domestic-violence awareness campaigns, meanwhile, emphasise frequency and severity in ways that can make the risk feel omnipresent. Neither framing tracks the epidemiology particularly well.
Rough estimate: Most women have no quantified estimate; advocacy framing suggests 'disturbingly common'
Source: editorial intuition, not polled
Actual
~0.96 per 100,000 women per year
US women, all ages, 2018-2021 average (CDC NVDRS)
Show derivation
CDC MMWR (August 2024) reports intimate-partner homicide rates among US women of 0.97 per 100,000 (2018-2019) and 0.95 per 100,000 (2020-2021), averaging ~0.96 per 100,000 per year. BJS separately finds that 34% of the ~4,970 female murder victims in 2021 were killed by intimate partners, yielding ~1,690 IPH deaths that year — consistent with the NVDRS rate applied to the ~175 million US female population. Compounded over 59 years of adult life: 1 − (1 − 9.6e-6)^59 ≈ 5.66e-4, or roughly 1 in 1,770. This is a population average across all US women regardless of relationship status. The uncertainty band reflects both measurement variation (NVDRS vs. BJS figures differ slightly) and year-to-year fluctuation. For US men, the intimate- partner homicide rate is roughly one-fifth the female rate.
Caveats: The headline number is a population average across all US women regardless of re…
The headline number is a population average across all US women regardless of relationship status, age, or demographics. It therefore understates the risk for women in abusive relationships and overstates it for women who are not in relationships or who have low-risk partnerships. The strongest individual predictor of IPH is a prior history of intimate-partner violence in the relationship. The gender disparity is stark — roughly 5:1 female-to-male — but male victims of IPH do exist and are likely undercounted due to reporting barriers. Racial disparities are substantial and persistent: Black women face approximately 3x the IPH rate of White women. The period immediately following separation from an abusive partner is the single highest-risk window, which complicates simplistic "just leave" advice. Firearms are present in roughly two-thirds of IPH cases, and state-level firearm access laws correlate with IPH rates in ecological analyses. The NVDRS data used here covered 48 states plus DC by 2021 but was not fully national in the earlier years of the 2018-2021 window. This entry complements the general homicide-us entry by focusing on the intimate-partner subset and its distinctive risk profile.
Risks at similar odds
Other risks with roughly the same likelihood — useful for calibration.
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The CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System recorded 3,991 female victims of intimate-partner homicide across 2018-2021, yielding a rate of roughly 0.96 per 100,000 women per year. The Bureau of Justice Statistics independently confirms the scale: 34% of the approximately 4,970 women murdered in 2021 were killed by an intimate partner. Compounded over an adult lifetime, the probability for a US woman is approximately 1 in 1,770 — about one-sixth the lifetime odds of being murdered by anyone at all, and roughly 33x more likely than dying in a plane crash.
What makes this risk distinctive is how sharply it diverges from the standard crime-fear template. Most violent-crime worry centres on strangers in unfamiliar places; intimate-partner homicide happens overwhelmingly in the victim’s own home (68% of cases) and is committed by someone the victim knows well (98.5% male suspects). Firearms are the mechanism in two-thirds of cases. The risk is not evenly distributed across a woman’s life: it concentrates during relationship-formation years (ages 18-44) and spikes during and immediately after separation from an abusive partner, a period that multiple studies identify as the single most dangerous window. This clustering means the population-average figure substantially understates the risk for women in abusive relationships while overstating it for the broader population.
Racial disparities are large and persistent. Black women accounted for roughly 30% of intimate-partner homicide victims during 2018-2021 despite constituting about 13% of the female population — a gap that widened during the pandemic years. Male victims of intimate-partner homicide exist but at roughly one-fifth the female per-capita rate (BJS: 6% of male murder victims vs. 34% of female murder victims were killed by a partner). State-level ecological analyses find correlations between firearm access laws and IPH rates, though disentangling causation from correlation in observational data remains contested. The entry uses population-average figures; individual risk depends heavily on relationship history, which no population denominator can fully capture.
Claim ledger
Every number below is what each source reported, with the verbatim quote we relied on and how we arrived at our figure. Click any link to verify directly.
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[1] CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) — Notes from the Field: Intimate Partner Homicide Among Women — United States, 2018–2021
Notes from the Field: Intimate Partner Homicide Among Women — United States, 2018–2021- Statistic
3,991 female victims of intimate partner homicide, 2018-2021; rates of 0.97 per 100,000 (2018-2019) and 0.95 per 100,000 (2020-2021)- Excerpt
“"During 2018–2021, a total of 3,991 female victims of intimate partner homicide were identified [...] Rates of intimate partner homicide during 2018–2019 (0.97 per 100,000) and 2020–2021 (0.95) were not significantly different." ”
- Source data from
- 2024-08-29
- Accessed
- 2026-04-18 · archived copy
- Calculation
- Primary native figure: ~0.96 per 100,000 women per year (average of 2018-2019 and 2020-2021 periods). 3,991 victims over 4 years ≈ 998 per year. Compounded: 1 − (1 − 9.6e-6)^59 ≈ 5.66e-4. The NVDRS covered 48 states plus DC by 2021, providing near-national coverage.
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[2] Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) — Female Murder Victims and Victim-Offender Relationship, 2021
Female Murder Victims and Victim-Offender Relationship, 2021- Statistic
34% of ~4,970 female murder victims in 2021 were killed by an intimate partner; 76% were killed by someone known to them- Excerpt
“"Of the estimated 4,970 female victims of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter in 2021, 34% were killed by an intimate partner [...] About 6% of the 17,970 males murdered that year were victims of intimate partner homicide." ”
- Source data from
- 2022-11-01
- Accessed
- 2026-04-18 · archived copy
- Calculation
- 34% of 4,970 ≈ 1,690 female IPH victims in 2021. Applied to ~175 million US females: 1,690 / 175,000,000 ≈ 9.66 per million ≈ 0.97 per 100,000. Cross-checks the NVDRS rate to within rounding. The 6% figure for males (≈1,078 male IPH victims) confirms the strong gender disparity: women are ~5x more likely to be killed by an intimate partner per unit of population.
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[3] Injury Epidemiology / BMC (peer-reviewed) — Femicide in the United States: a call for legal codification and national surveillance
Femicide in the United States: a call for legal codification and national surveillance- Statistic
Approximately half of all female homicides in the US are intimate-partner-related; firearms used in approximately two-thirds of cases- Excerpt
“"Femicide accounts for a significant proportion of female homicides in the United States, with intimate partner violence being the leading context [...] Firearms are the predominant weapon used in femicides." ”
- Source data from
- 2024-03-11
- Accessed
- 2026-04-18 · archived copy
- Calculation
- Provides broader framing and confirms that IPV-related homicide constitutes the largest single category of female homicide in the US. The "approximately half" figure is higher than BJS's 34% because this study uses a broader definition that includes ex-partners and dating partners more comprehensively. Used for contextual cross-check, not for the primary rate calculation.