Black Women 6 Times More Likely Than White Women to Die of Homicide, Study Shows

From 1999 to 2020, Black women were on average six times more likely than white women to be a victim of homicide, according to a new study, with researchers pointing to structural social inequities as fueling their higher risk.

A new analysis published on Thursday in the Lancet found the homicide rate among Black women between the ages of 25 and 44 years increased by 73% between 2014 and 2020.The study examined more than 31,600 homicide deaths among women over the past two decades across 30 states.

“To find that Black women were murdered at a rate of six times that of white women was really pretty shocking,” says lead study author Bernadine Waller, a National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral research fellow in the psychiatry department at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

In 2020, the homicide rate for Black women was 11.6 homicides per 100,000 women, compared to a relatively static rate of 3 per 100,000 among white women in the same age group.

The study found the homicide rate to be significantly higher among Black women in every state examined over the last two decades, with the highest inequity found in the Midwest, where from 2019 to 2020, Black women were seven times more likely to be a homicide victim compared with white women.

By contrast, states located in the South and West had the lowest difference in the rate of homicide, with Black women in those regions close to three times as likely to be killed compared with white women. The states with the lowest disparities in homicide rates were Virginia, Alabama and Florida.

Wisconsin, in particular, saw the largest disparity of any state overall, with the homicide rate among Black women more than 20 times that of white women from 2019 through 2020. Study authors said this marks a “disturbing increase” from the period between 1999 and 2003, when the homicide rate among Black women was six times that of white women.

In Wisconsin, Missouri, Arizona and Oklahoma, the study found that from 2019 through 2020, more than 15 additional Black women than white women died by homicide for every 100,000 women ages 25 to 44 years.

The study noted that “the greatest inequities are in areas of the country where concentrated disadvantage is pronounced.” In 2023, Wisconsin’s economy was ranked 49th among states and Washington, D.C., for having the most racial equality, according to an analysis by WalletHub.

In the equality subcategory of the U.S. News Best States’ analysis in 2023 – based on measurements of equality by gender, disability and race – Wisconsin ranked No. 31, and no Midwestern states landed in the top 10.

“Structural racism might provide insight as to why Black women, regardless of their ethnicity, face disproportionately high rates of homicide,” the study stated. “Specifically, educational attainment, employment, poverty, residential segregation, and home ownership are well known indicators influencing disproportionately high rates of homicide in areas where Black women largely reside.”

Waller says many homicides among women involve some type of intimate partner violence, and that economic inequality impacting Black households may contribute to creating the circumstances that are putting Black women at higher risk.

“When women have the ability, the financial wherewithal, to leave their partner, they’re less likely to stay,” Waller says. “If you map this to Equal Pay Day, for Black women, it takes them eight months or more to earn as much money as their white, male counterparts.”

Homicide by firearm is increasing in frequency, according to the study, and firearm homicide deaths disproportionately kill Black women across every region in the U.S.