Spotlight on economic abuse - Good Shepherd Youth & Family ...

Influences, Impacts and Points of Intervention
It is necessary to locate economic abuse within the broader context of domestic and family
violence and the context of broader social and economic arrangements to identify influencing
factors and impacts and to start drawing out the multiplicity of connections between public
policies and practices and economic abuse. In this section an ecological model is applied to
economic abuse to illustrate the complexity of the relationships between influencing factors
and consequences including the underlying conditions which may increase or may decrease
risks of abuse. Following this, the discussion focuses on what is known about vulnerability to
economic abuse. It then turns to an examination of the direct consequences of economic
abuse and of the financial or economic consequences of domestic and family violence.
Applying an ecological model to economic abuse
In Figure One an ‘ecological model’ (Bronfenbrenner 1979) is applied to economic abuse.
This model provides a visual representation of the multiple levels of influences on economic
abuse and it gives some emphasis to gender inequality including the unequal economic
position of women. Thus the model includes individual, situational, community and societal
factors that influence abuse and economic wellbeing. This type of model has been used in a
wide range of contexts to explore influences on violence (World Health Organization 2002, p.
12) including, in Victoria, VicHealth’s (2007) framework for preventing violence against
women.
Influences at all levels may be positive or negative; they may either reduce or increase the
likelihood of economic abuse occurring or they may either lessen or exacerbate the negative
consequences of economic abuse. The solid arrows in Figure One show the direction of
causal influences. The complicated relationships between causal factors and responses are
indicated by the arrows identifying that causal influences may operate in both directions.
This model can also be used to guide an exploration of the relations of public policies and
practices—including government policy and services, regulatory frameworks, and community
sector policies and practices—to economic abuse that captures the sphere of influence (for
example, societal, community, relationship/individual) and later sections of this report
address these issues.
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