Rethinking the Mexican Conflict with a Gender Perspective

This article examines how the expansion of criminal organizations in Mexico affects different forms of violence through a gendered lens. Using an event-study design with data on homicides, feminicides, and missing persons disaggregated by gender, I exploit the entry of the first cartel into a municipality to estimate its causal effects. The results show that cartel entry significantly increases homicide rates for male victims but has no statistically significant effect on female homicides or feminicides. In contrast, missing persons rates rise sharply for both men and women, with particularly pronounced increases among adolescent and young adult women. Additional analysis reveals that the entry of a second cartel further increases missing persons rates but does not affect homicide or feminicide rates. Robustness checks using the onset of the war on drugs confirm the main findings. The article contributes to conflict studies by integrating gender perspectives and by identifying missing persons as a critical yet understudied outcome.