Making Sense of Honor Killings

Honor killings, which occur when women are perceived to have broken purity norms and bring “dishonor†to their family, pose profound moral and societal problems and underrecognized sociological puzzles. Given the immense cost, why do families murder their own daughter, niece, or cousin? Conversely, given the tragic consequences, why are norms broken in the first place? Drawing on accounts of honor killings, we characterize the key actors, actions, and incentives, and develop two interlinked theoretical models, one on norm-enforcement and another on norm-breaking. The former specifies the conditions under which honor norms should hold, the latter, counterintuitively, predicts that honor killings occur most frequently when honor norms are contested; not when they are strictest. Analyzing data from 24 countries and ~26,000 individuals and building a unique dataset of honor killings from Turkey, we find support for the hypotheses. Honor norms are stronger when laws offer leniency for honor killings, families’ loss of reputation is more consequential, and community cohesion is higher. Actual killings have an inverse-U-shaped link with the prevalence of honor norms. Our work advances the theoretical understanding of honor norms and killings and offers one of the most comprehensive empirical analyses of the factors influencing honor killings.