We need to speak up about economic violence

Domestic and family violence have become better recognised, discussed, and responded to, but there is still a tendency to think about them in terms of physical or sexual violence. We also have a better understanding of what constitutes psychological abuse, such as being constantly insulted or humiliated. What we don’t talk about as often as we should is economic abuse, which can be an incredibly destructive part of power and control that makes up abusive relationships.

Economic abuse can take many forms, and terms such as “economic control”, “employment sabotage”, and “economic exploitation” are helpful for understanding some of the ways it occurs. Economic control includes behaviours such as monitoring and restricting a person’s ability to use money, for instance preventing them from having access to money for household necessities.

Employment sabotage can include tactics such as refusing to provide childcare so their partner can go to work, harassing their partner at the workplace, or interfering with a person’s ability to get to work by turning off alarm clocks, breaking cars, or disrupting sleep. Abusers may interfere with their partner’s education, limiting their ability to get better paying jobs.

Tactics for economic exploitation can involve the abuser missing bill payments in their partner’s name, spending money needed for basic needs, intentionally building up debt in the victim’s name, or forcing partners to hand over benefit money. There isn’t the space here and it isn’t possible to provide a complete list of the tactics of an economic abuser but suffice to say they tailor abusive strategies to hurt or limit their partner the most.

The 2018 Family Violence Act describes financial or economic abuse “for example, unreasonably denying or limiting access to financial resources, or preventing or restricting employment opportunities or access to education” as a part of the overall category of psychological abuse, which clearly indicates these behaviours are against the law.

Nevertheless, there is still difficulty in getting economic abuse recognised and prosecuted, as police and courts system are often focused on prosecuting individual acts of physical violence rather than recognising wider patterns of abusive and controlling behaviour.

As part of a larger study to find out how common violence is in Aotearoa, and to document some of its health and social consequences, we conducted a population-based study with a representative sample of 1431 ever-partnered New Zealand women*. We wanted to document women’s experience of multiple types of violence, so we asked about their experience of economic abuse, as well as their experience of physical and sexual violence, psychological abuse, and other types of controlling behaviour. In this part of the study, we explored how commonly women reported experience of economic abuse, if it co-occurred with other types of violence, and if experience of economic abuse compounded health and financial problems for women, over and above what we were seeing among women who had experienced the other types of abuse.

Overall, we found about one in seven women (15 percent) who have been in an intimate relationship reported economic abuse. The most prevalent act was a refusal to provide money for household expenses, reported by 8.8 percent of women. Other examples included interfering with childcare when she needed to be at work (reported by 6.8 percent of women), taking the woman’s earnings or savings (6.5 percent), being forced to give up or refuse a job (4.6 percent), or pressured into unwanted paid work (2.1 percent).

Economic abuse almost always occurred as part of a larger pattern of intimate partner violence and was particularly strongly associated with women’s experience of psychological abuse, including insults, humiliation, and threats, as well as experience of physical and sexual violence and controlling behaviours.

One of the striking findings from this study was how economic abuse added to mental health problems for women over and above other types of abuse. Perhaps unsurprisingly, women who experienced other types of violence and abuse were twice as likely to have mental health problems compared with women who had not experienced abuse. However, women who experienced economic abuse as well as other forms of physical, sexual or psychological violence by a partner were almost five times more likely to have a diagnosed mental health condition compared with women who were not abused.

In a country where we keep talking about having a mental health crisis, we need to recognise that experience of violence and abuse within the family is likely one of the causal factors underpinning the crisis.

Experience of violence and abuse also pushes women into poverty. Women who experienced abuse from a partner (not including economic abuse) were almost twice as likely to be food insecure (literally, not being sure they had enough money to buy food) compared with women who did not experience abuse.

However, women who were subjected to economic abuse on top of other forms of violence and abuse by a partner were five times more likely to be food insecure compared with non-abused women. Further, compared with those had not experienced violence, women who experienced economic abuse were three times more likely to be on a benefit, and three times more likely to not have money to support their family if an emergency struck.

Again, as a country we keep talking about entrenched problems of poverty and what we might do to fix this – perhaps we might get further if we look at the role that violence and abuse plays in the problem.

What do we do with this information?

For a start, we could recognise that intimate partner violence is a preventable problem and look seriously at implementing evidence-based community mobilisation approaches to prevent violence such as the SASA! Approach, an intervention that has achieved a 50 percent reduction in perpetration of intimate partner violence within four years. We should be asking how we can learn from these programmes and shape them to fit our unique country.

Second, we could recognise that abuse is usually part of a broad pattern of behaviour. If we only think about it as a single act, such as being hit or punched or having an arm broken, we miss the broader mental health and economic consequences other forms of abuse create. This inhibits us from being able to offer people the help they need.

Third, this study signals that holistic responses to intimate and family violence must understand economic violence and its impacts. Recognising economic abuse should also give us new tools for engaging institutions such as banks (as has been done in Australia), and insurance companies and other financial institutions to provide protections for those experiencing abuse.

It is critical that greater support is given to women who are subjected to economic as well as other forms of abuse and that we develop and fund programmes to work with men who are perpetrating this harm.

* As part of a larger study to find out how common the experience of violence is in Aotearoa, and to document some of its health and social consequences, we conducted a population-based study with a representative sample of almost 3,000 people, including men and women. In this study we focus on the experiences of 1431 ever-partnered New Zealand women, because more women than men reported serious injuries, fear, and physical and mental health impacts following intimate partner violence than men.