Spotlight on Economic Abuse: a Literature and Policy Review

also outside the scope of this paper, while it is recognised that forced marriage can be a
form of domestic and family violence
How common is economic abuse?
Historically economic abuse has not been included as a form of domestic and family
violence in law nor in definitions used in surveys of violence. Therefore, there is limited
information from Australian sources about its prevalence in the population. Key national data
sources on domestic and family violence are the Personal Safety Survey conducted by the
ABS (ABS 2006) and the Australian component of the International Violence Against Women
Survey (IVAWS) (Mouzos & Makkai 2004), neither of which included economic abuse in their
definitions of domestic and family violence. The Personal Safety Survey found that two per
cent of women had been subject to violence by a current partner and 15 per cent had
experienced violence by a previous partner. By comparison, just under one per cent of men
had experienced violence from a current partner and almost five per cent had experienced
violence from a previous partner (ABS 2006, p. 11). The IVAWS survey found that 34 per
cent of women who had a current or former intimate partner had been subject to domestic
violence at least once, with 36 per cent experiencing violence from a former partner and 10
per cent from a current partner (Mouzos & Makkai 2004, p. 3).
While there is limited Australian research on its prevalence, there are research findings that
suggest economic abuse may be a very common form of violence affecting women who
seek assistance because of domestic and family violence. A recent Australian study found
80 per cent of 134 women who reported they had experienced domestic violence had been
subject to financial abuse (Evans 2007). In this study financial abuse referred to “a situation
where one partner in a relationship maintains control over the finances and prevents the
other from having ready access to available funds” (Evans 2007, p. 25). Thus, the 80 per
cent of women would not include any who experienced interference with their participation in
education, training or employment but who did not also experience control over their
finances. In a recent Australian online survey of workers nearly half of respondents who had
experienced domestic violence reported that the violence affected their capacity to get to
work; 31 per cent of this group reported that car keys or transport money were hidden or
stolen, 23 per cent reported that personal documents were hidden or stolen and 23 per cent
reported that their partner refused or failed to show up to care for children (McFerran 2011,
p. 9).
Much of the other relevant research available is from the United States and this also mostly
concerns women seeking assistance due to domestic violence. One recent United States
study found that over 90 per cent of 120 women participating in a domestic violence support
group had experienced some form of economic abuse (Postmus et al. 2012). Examples
included: experiences of a partner doing things to keep the woman from going to her job (68
per cent); a partner spending money that was needed for rent or bills (69 per cent); a partner
running up debt under the woman’s name by using her credit cards or running up phone bills
(59 per cent); and a partner making a woman ask for money (74 per cent) (Postmus et al.
2012). In another US study which trialled a ‘Scale of Economic Abuse’ 99 per cent of 120
women who were seeking support from domestic violence services were found to have been
subject to economic abuse and, of those who were on low incomes, 76 per cent reported
that the material hardship they faced was very much or completely the responsibility of their
abusive partner (Adams et al. 2008, p. 581). Reviewing US studies from the late 1980s to
mid 2000s Adams et al. (2008) report findings of between 29 and 62 per cent of women
experiencing domestic violence reporting that their partners’ interfered with their ability to
further their education. Other research found 38 per cent of 485 women seeking support
from domestic violence services reported that their partners had stolen money from them
(Anderson et al. 2003). The prevalence of economic abuse varies considerably between
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