New research undertaken for this week’s National Summit on Women’s Safety finds violence and unwanted sexual activity are far more common among young women experiencing financial hardship than women who are not.
By Alice Campbell, The University of Queensland and Janeen Baxter, The University of Queensland
It comes as the federal government has denied Australians locked down and living only on benefits such as JobSeeker the sort of extra support it offered last year, when it effectively doubled JobSeeker during the early months of the pandemic.
Our findings of a higher risk of violence for women living in financial hardship is a real concern, especially when coupled with 2020 research from the Australian Institute of Criminology.
That research found that of the Australian women who reported physical or sexual violence from a partner during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, 65 per cent experienced an increase in the severity or frequency of violence, or experienced it for the first time.
Read more: Financial abuse: how to spot the warning signs and protect yourself
Abuse twice to three times as likely
Our research, using data from women aged 21-28 collected for the 2017 Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health, found 14.4 per cent had experienced some form of abuse at the hands of a current or former partner in the previous 12 months.
The definition of abuse includes physical, emotional and sexual abuse, coercive control, harassment and stalking.
Among young women not reporting financial hardship, the rate was 12.9 per cent. Among young women in financial hardship, it was 25.3 per cent.
Source: Derived from Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health, 2017 Wave
We characterised women as experiencing financial hardship if they reported they had been “very” or “extremely” stressed about money in the past 12 months and also said it was “difficult all the time” or “impossible” to manage on their income.
Overall, 4.6 per cent of young women said they had been the victim of unwanted sexual activity in the previous 12 months.
Among young women not reporting financial hardship, the rate was 4 per cent. Among young women in financial hardship, it was 9.4 per cent.
Source: Derived from Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health, 2017 Wave
Overall, 3.7 per cent had experienced at least one form of severe abuse at the hands of a current or former partner in the previous 12 months.
The definition includes being threatened or assaulted with a gun, knife or other weapon, being locked in a room, and being choked.
Among young women not reporting financial hardship, the rate was 2.9 per cent. Among young women in financial hardship, it was 9.3 per cent.
Source: Derived from Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health, 2017 Wave
Abuse also leads to financial hardship.
To examine this we compared rates of abuse among young women who had been free of hardship the year before.
Among young Australian women aged 21-28 who were not experiencing financial hardship in 2016, the risk of moving into financial hardship in 2017 was 5.6 per cent for women who had experienced no abuse in the past year.
Among women who had experienced unwanted sexual activity, the rate was three times as big — 16.1%, compared to 5.6 per cent.
Among women who had experienced severe partner abuse, the rate was almost four times as big — 20%, compared to 5.6 per cent.
Source: Derived from Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health, 2017 Wave
The research builds a strong case for governments to continue to invest in programs including helplines and counselling to address violence against women, a case made stronger by COVID-19.
COVID has created new opportunities for agencies to move quickly with innovative, fast-moving partnerships, such as those seen between police and health departments.
But to enact real change, it will be necessary to look beyond dealing with perpetrators and supporting victims.
The causes of partner violence against women include broader power imbalances, among them the idea of “women’s work”, uneven family responsibilities, paying women differently, and ignoring unpaid care work.
In Australia, institutionalised gender divisions of labour in the home and at work entrench disadvantage. World Economic Forum data shows Australia’s overall score on gender disadvantage going backwards.
Alice Campbell, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Life Course Centre and Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland and Janeen Baxter, Director, Life Course Centre, Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Family and domestic violence support services:
- 1800 RESPECT national helpline: 1800 737 732
- Men’s Referral Service: 1300 766 491
- Lifeline (24-hour crisis line): 131 114
- Relationships Australia: 1300 364 277
Other resources that can help:
- WIRE: 1300 134 130
- Victims of Crime (or your state or territory’s Victims of Crime service): 1800 819 817
- If you’re in immediate danger, call the police on 000
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