These effects can be expected to be stronger where political order has collapsed or where conflict has ethnic roots.

This also increases risks of HIV infection. This disproportionately affects women due to pre-existing social structures that disadvantage them in access to resources (ii) the displacement effect: Women are overrepresented in refugee camps where mortality rates are generally higher than outside (iii) the sexual violence effect: Women are often systematically sexually assaulted and murdered during conflicts. Women tend to live longer than men in peacetime but the paper finds that conflict reduces the gap in life expectancy, suggesting that women are more adversely affected by armed conflict than men.Ĭonflict affects men and women unevenly in the following ways: (i) The economic damage effect: Conflict damages agricultural systems, basic infrastructure and healthcare infrastructure. This paper, prepared for the journal International Organization, analyses the impact of armed conflict on male relative to female life expectancy.

However, there are a range of indirect effects of conflict which may affect women more than men. Does conflict reduce the gap in life expectancy between men and women? Most direct victims of armed conflict tend to be men, because most combatants are men.

Women and armed conflict