Single mums and poor women most at risk of domestic violence

Single mothers and women from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds are the most likely to ­experience violence.

Single mothers and women from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds are the most likely to ­experience violence perpetrated by their intimate partners, analysis released by the Australian ­Bureau of Statistics reveals.

Women belonging to the most advantaged socio-­economic group experienced domestic violence at the rate of 1.8 per cent over the previous two years. Those in the lowest quintile ­experienced violence at ­almost double that rate (3.4 per cent).

When categorised by household, single mothers with dependent children were the most likely to have experienced violence in the previous two years (8.1 per cent), while those in a couple household with no children were the least likely (2 per cent). The figures were released on Tuesday as part of a new analysis of the ABS’s 2016 personal safety survey.

About 1.1 million women were estimated to have experienced physical assault by a male in the past 10 years. Of those women, about 79 per cent had experienced their most recent incident of violence in the home, and about a third (31 per cent) reported the matter to police.

About half (49 per cent) of women said alcohol or another substance had contributed to the incident. The most common physical assault behaviour was pushing, grabbing or shoving (71 per cent) and having something thrown at them (36 per cent).

The ABS analysis comes as the Productivity Commission’s annual report on government services reveals that domestic ­violence matters are swamping the nation’s lower courts. About 35 per cent of all finalised civil cases in magistrates courts involved an application for a domestic or family violence protection order.

The Northern Territory had the highest proportion, with 72 per cent of all civil cases finalised in a magistrates court ­involving an application for a domestic or family violence order, followed by Queensland (54 per cent). The lowest was Tasmania, with 12.4 per cent. Experimental data released by the ABS last year found that, in criminal matters, about one in five offenders charged by police in 2017-18 had at least one family or domestic violence-related ­offence.

Separately, the Australian ­Institute of Criminology released new research on Tuesday that found that almost half (48 per cent) of female-­perpetrated domestic violence incidents involved self-defensive or retaliatory violence.

In 20 per cent of incidents, the violence was directly preceded by abuse or intimidation by the male partner, while 33 per cent involved a female who had previously been a victim of violence by their current partner.

About a third of women (34 per cent) used a weapon, but the male victims were not more likely to be injured in those incidents.