A new Australian report, by Anne Summers from the University of Technology in Sydney, states:
“It is no accident that employment and education – the pathway to higher income – are targeted by perpetrators as a prime means of depleting or even destroying women’s ability to be financially self-sufficient…This report sets out in detail how large numbers of women have not attained a degree, have left the labour force, have reduced their working hours, or have taken time off work– all because of domestic violence.”
For women experiencing domestic violence, the study showed a 5.5% decline in full-time employment and a rise in part-time employment and women not in the labour force, “driven predominantly by suffering multiple forms of abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, harassment (p.37).”
This is similar to Women’s Refuge (NZ) research on economic abuse (2020) findings that “economic abuse severely impacted employment, with less than half of respondents who had worked full-time prior to the relationship sustaining full-time employment during the relationship,” and this “only marginally improving after the end of the relationship. Those who stayed in employment were subjected to numerous hardships affecting their future employment prospects.”
The 2025 Australian report provides comprehensive data as well as a personal testament to the impact of domestic violence on women’s employment:
“The main author of this report is struck by the number of people who have approached her in her own workplace to tell her about their own experience, or their mother’s, or sister’s or their best friend’s. It is everywhere, and with policies now in place to try to help victim-survivors stay in employment, probably growing in prevalence."
The report shows that 48% of women had their ability to get to work impacted: 67% experiencing physical injury or restraint, 28% having their car key or transport money hidden or stolen, 22% had partner refuse or fail to show up to care for children and 21% had their personal documents hidden (p.39).”
It highlights the impact of intimate partner stalking at work for women in employment:
- “39.8% were stalked by a male intimate partner at work or their educational facility” (p.41)
- “30.4 per cent of survey respondents who experienced workplace interference indicated that perpetrators physically came into their workplaces” with “51% saying the perpetrator abused them via phone during working hours” (p.43)
The report also discusses the issue of “employees feeling comfortable, or even safe, in informing their supervisor about their domestic violence situation,” reporting that 73% of women didn’t tell anyone at work they were experiencing domestic violence (p.70).
We strongly recommend reading the full report for a much more comprehensive understanding of the cost of domestic violence to women’s employment and education in Australia.
We’re very excited that the National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges (NCIWR) will be publishing New Zealand research on this topic later this year. We will share more once NCIWR’s report is published.