Women are still being kept in the home. But not by what you think

It’s a topic that, despite its horrific consequences, makes us avert our eyes, close the tab, and turn the page.

Usually, sadly, it’s only when there’s a death that readers – and the click-hungry media – pay attention. But before I lose you, I want to reassure you that it’s not all bad news. And I want you to hear from people who have defied the odds.

Financial planner and domestic violence survivor Amanda Thompson and domestic violence researcher Anne Summers.Credit: Amanda Thompson and Dion Georgopoulos

We already know domestic violence kills one woman every 11 days in Australia.

But for the first time, Dr Anne Summers, domestic and family violence professor at UTS, has put cold, hard numbers on the effects of domestic violence in Australia on women’s careers and how likely they are to finish their uni degrees.

When you think about it, the effect isn’t surprising. But Summers’ research exposes the gap between women who endure violence and those who don’t: it’s costing not just lives but our economy.

We’ve come a long way in getting women into work and pursuing university degrees. In 2024, three in five women were working or looking for work. Compare that to just one in three 60 years ago.

Similarly, only 8 per cent of young women had walked across the stage at a graduation in 1982. Today, that figure exceeds 50 per cent.

But those numbers should be higher, Summers says.

She looked at women born between 1989 and 1995 and found there was a nearly 15 percentage point difference between women who had experienced domestic violence and those who hadn’t when it came to the proportion who had finished a university degree by the time they hit 27.

For Laura McConnell, getting a degree was especially difficult after enduring family violence. “Even getting through required incredible resilience,” she says. “But I couldn’t afford to fail because I would have to go back to an abusive family.”

McConnell is now a co-founder of the social enterprise GoKindly, which supports women experiencing housing stress, but she left an earlier career at a big four consulting firm after she found they were unable to support her with her complex background.

“The fallout of coming from violence just follows you through your career,” she says.

While McConnell moved away from her abusive family, Summers says it’s also common for abusers, particularly partners, to prevent women from studying or cause them significant stress – a leading reason for dropping out.

“It’s no accident that employment and education, the pathway to better employment, are targeted by perpetrators,” Summers says. It’s a prime way to crush a woman’s ability to be financially self-sufficient and keep her under her partner’s thumb.

More than 280,000 women, or 5 per cent of the female population aged 18 to 64, have had a partner who has controlled or tried to control them from studying through everything from forced pregnancies to destroying school supplies, stalking them or making them feel guilty about their academic efforts.

This can jeopardise a woman’s career and financial future because a university degree increases the odds of landing a job by about two and a half times and boosts lifetime earnings by as much as 41 per cent. Abuse can also leave them saddled with student debt that they may never earn enough to repay, shrinking their borrowing power.

Financial planner Amanda Thompson endured domestic violence and felt the impact on her work.

Endurance athlete Amanda Thompson, who runs her own financial planning business, Endurance Financial, has worked with women experiencing abuse but never thought she’d go through it herself.

Thompson endured emotional abuse for some time before an out-of-the-blue display of physical aggression ended with a triple-zero call.

But it was the year after the scars and bruises healed that was worse.

“It was a year from hell trying to run my own business and keep up with clients,” she says. “I was diagnosed with PTSD, which makes you exhausted all the time. Your body goes into spending all its energy on protecting you.”

Thompson said specialist support and counselling were key to her recovery but that there needed to be more funding for these services and more education on exit strategies.

“In my work, I’m actually getting more and more women coming to me confidentially, saying, financially, where do I need to be to leave,” she said.

Women who have endured abuse in the past five years are less likely to be working. About three-quarters were employed compared to more than four in five for women who hadn’t faced an abusive partner.

While younger women tend to pull back on the hours they work, for older women, most of the fall in employment is driven by them leaving the labour force altogether.

With 1.6 million women having experienced economic abuse by a partner since the age of 15, these proportions significantly dent the workforce.

A form of violence called “economic abuse” has an especially destructive effect. The difference in employment rates between women who have experienced it and those who haven’t is nearly 10 percentage points.

Economic abuse is when a person controls their partner through, for example, preventing a partner from going to work, making frequent disruptive phone calls to them at work, and saddling a partner with debt.

It can also include cunning tactics like hiding transport cards or keys, damaging clothing, or changing calendar appointments so that they get a reputation for being unpunctual.

When a woman stops working, it’s harder for her to plan an escape from her violent partner as she’s not likely to have enough individual income.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

This leaves the affected partner tired and stressed, embarrassed from constantly being late for work, or unable to concentrate on their work.

Even if the abuse doesn’t push a woman out of work completely, one in three who experience violence while holding down a job take time off work. The likelihood increases if they have dependent children or if the violence is very frequent.

This can lead to job loss, a significant fall (averaging about 9 per cent) in the woman’s income and a lower superannuation balance in retirement.

These consequences can affect their decision to stay or leave a violent relationship. Fear of ending up in poverty is a major roadblock to women leaving violent relationships, and women who have experienced domestic violence report much higher rates of financial distress, with 44 per cent facing a household cash flow issue.

‘It’s no accident that employment and education, the pathway to better employment, are targeted by perpetrators.’

Dr Anne Summers, UTS professor in domestic and family violence

When a woman stops working, it’s harder for her to plan an escape from her violent partner as she’s not likely to have enough individual income. Working is also a safeguard against domestic violence because it offers women support networks at work.

The most recent comprehensive estimate of the costs of domestic violence, prepared by KPMG, puts the dollar figure at up to $26 billion a year, including the cost of pain, suffering, premature death, reduced productivity and increased demand on the justice system.

But in the decade since, Summers says the costs have probably jumped given newer forms of violence.

There’s plenty that could be done to fight against domestic violence, but ANU research fellow Kristin Sobeck, who worked on the report with Summers, says it starts with collecting more data.

“It’s really been a struggle to quantify the impact of domestic violence on women’s lives because there’s a dearth of data,” she says. “The first thing that shows you care about something is that you measure it.”

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

Millie Muroi is the economics writer