Economic cost of violence against women and their children  

The cost of inaction

Violence against women and their children will cost the Australian economy an estimated $13.6 billion this year¹. Without appropriate action to address violence against women and their children², an estimated three-quarters of a million Australian women will experience and report violence in the period of 2021-22, costing the Australian economy an estimated $15.6 billion³. This is more than last year’s $10.4 billion plan by the Australian Government to stimulate the economy in the face of the global financial crisis; more than the Government's $5.9 billion Education Revolution; and more than three-quarters of the initial budget allocation in 2008-09 of $20 billion to its Building Australia Fund.

Implementation of Time for Action: The National Council’s Plan for Australia to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (the Plan of Action) aims to reduce the levels of violence against women and their children by 2021. For every woman whose experience of violence can be prevented by the Plan of Action, $20,766 in costs across all affected groups in society are avoided.

To place this in perspective, if the Plan of Action resulted in an average reduction in violence against women and their children of just 10 per cent by 2021-22, some $1.6 billion in costs to victims/survivors, their friends and families, perpetrators, children, employers, governments and the community could be avoided.

The Plan of Action

Violence against women and their children remains a profound problem and addressing it is one of the greatest challenges for Australia. Around one in three Australian women experience physical violence, and almost one in five women experience sexual violence over their lifetime⁴.

In May 2008, the Australian Government established the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (the Council) to provide expert advice on measures to reduce the incidence and impact of sexual assault and domestic and family violence. The first task for the Council was to develop a national plan of action.

The Plan of Action describes the commitment and actions needed to guide all Australians, their governments and communities in reducing violence against women and their children. Implementing the Plan of Action is central to achieving the Government’s priorities for women.

The Plan of Action sets out an action agenda until 2021. This timeframe recognises the need for long-term investment and commitment in order to achieve long-term and sustainable change. The aim of this report is to provide indicative estimates of the cost of violence against women and their children in 2021-22 without appropriate action, and the costs that could be avoided by reducing levels of violence.

The cost of violence against women and their children

Violence against women and their children carries an enormous economic cost to society. The cost of domestic violence in Australia was estimated at $8.1 billion in 2002-03, comprising $3.5 billion in costs attributable to pain, suffering and premature mortality. The largest cost burden of domestic violence was borne by victims/survivors ($4 billion)⁵.

This report updates the 2002-03 cost estimates and projects the costs to 2021 22⁶. In updating the estimates, the most recent data has been used as a basis for updating the costs, and in other cases an appropriate escalation factor has been applied (rather than replicating the construction of these costs).

The scope and effort implied in constructing the 2002-03 estimates far exceeds that of this study. The aim is to provide decision-makers with a sense of the scale of this problem and its impact on society, in order to provide another perspective on the need for and benefits of intervention as advocated by the Plan of Action.

The estimates of cost savings are not linked to specific initiatives contained in the Plan of Action. This report does not contain views on the cost-effectiveness of specific initiatives proposed in the Plan of Action. These are areas that could be considered as part of a detailed business case for investment.

Cost categories

There are seven cost categories that comprise the headline cost estimate. These are:

• Pain, suffering and premature mortality costs associated with the victims/survivors experience of violence.
• Health costs include public and private health system costs associated with treating the effects of violence against women.
• Production-related costs, including the cost of being absent from work, and employer administrative costs (for example, employee replacement).
• Consumption-related costs, including replacing damaged property, defaulting on bad debts, and the costs of moving.
• Second generation costs are the costs of children witnessing and living with violence, including child protection services and increased juvenile and adult crime, which are the inefficiencies associated with the payment of government benefits.
• Administrative and other costs, including police, incarceration, court system costs, counselling, and violence prevention programs.
• Transfer costs, which are the inefficiencies associated with government benefits such as victim/survivor compensation and lost taxes.

The costs are allocated across eight groups within society which bear the costs of violence. These are: victims/survivors; perpetrators; children; friends and family; employers; federal, state/territory and local government; and the rest of the community/society (non-government). Further details, including cost category descriptions and details on the approach taken to update and forecasts these costs, are in the Appendix to this report.

Prevalence of reported violence

The cost estimates in this report have been calculated using a reported prevalence approach based on Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Personal Safety Survey (PSS) data.^6a A prevalence approach measures the costs associated with domestic violence in a specific year, based on the number of women experiencing violence in that year – that is, it includes the costs of all domestic violence occurring in that year. The approach captures reported violence only – in other words, unreported violence is not included.

Implementation of the Plan of Action would likely result in increased awareness of domestic violence against women and their children, leading to an initial increase in the number of cases of reported violence (and an associated increase in costs). However, a reduction in the levels of violence to 2021 is expected as the initiatives gain traction. Without appropriate action, the prevalence of reported violence is assumed to increase on average at a rate consistent with forecast population growth to 2021-22.

Key findings

The cost of violence

Table 1 below summarises the costs of domestic (intimate partner) and non-domestic (non-intimate partner) violence against women and their children by category in 2021-22 without appropriate action.

Without appropriate action, the total cost of violence against women and their children in 2021 22 is estimated to be $15.6 billion. The largest contributor is ‘pain, suffering and premature mortality’, at $7.5 billion. The remaining costs total $8.1 billion. The largest part is ‘consumption-related’ costs at $3.5 billion. The next largest categories are ‘production’ and ‘administrative and other’, at $1.2 billion and $1.1 billion respectively.

Table 2 shows which groups in society bear these costs.

Reflecting the large contribution of pain, suffering and premature mortality to total costs, the largest cost burden ($8.1 billion) is estimated to be borne by victims/survivors of violence. The next largest burdens are on the federal and state/territory governments ($2.9 billion) and the general community ($1.9 billion).

Vulnerable groups

The ways in which women and their children experience violence, the options open to them in dealing with violence, and the extent to which they have access to services that meet their needs are shaped by the intersection of gender with factors such as disability, English language fluency, ethnicity, physical location, sexuality, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status, and migration experience⁸. These factors act to increase vulnerability to the risk and effects of violence.

The estimated cost of violence perpetrated against women from selected vulnerable groups is presented in Table 3.

Without appropriate action to 2021-22, violence against immigrant and refugee women is estimated to cost the economy just over $4 billion; against women with disabilities $3.9 billion; against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women $2.2 billion; and in relation to children who witness violence $1.5 billion.

Next steps

Violence against women and their children carries an enormous economic cost to society. The Plan of Action describes the commitment and actions needed to guide all Australians, their governments and communities in reducing this violence. A significant proportion of the costs associated with violence against women and their children to 2021-22 will be avoided with action to implement the Plan of Action initiatives. The costs of the initiatives and the anticipated cost-effectiveness of investment are areas that should be considered as part of a detailed business case for investment.

1. Violence against women and their children includes domestic (intimate and ex-intimate partner) and non-domestic violence. Importantly (as with most studies in this field), the estimate captures reported violence only – in other words, unreported violence is not included.
2. Violence against women and their children includes domestic and non-domestic violence.
3. Includes domestic violence and non-domestic sexual assault and is comprised of $7.6 billion in non-financial costs (pain, suffering and premature death) and $8 billion in financial costs.
4. 4. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Personal Safety Survey, ABS Cat. No. 4906.0, Canberra, 2005.
5. Access Economics, The Cost of Domestic Violence to the Australian Economy: Part I and Access Economics, The Cost of Domestic Violence to the Australian Economy: Part II, 2004, viewed December 2008
6. Note that the Access Economics estimate pertains to domestic violence only and includes domestic violence perpetrated against men. The estimates in this report include non-domestic sexual assault and exclude violence perpetrated against men.
7. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Personal Safety Survey, ABS Cat. No. 4906.0, Canberra, 2005.
8. Totals hereafter may not sum because of rounding.
9. Stubbs, Violence Against Women: the Challenge of Diversity for Law, Policy and Practice. Second National Outlook Symposium: Violence Crime, Property Crime and Public Policy, Australian Institute of Criminology Canberra, 1997.