The economic consequences of gender-based violence

In the 2024 general election, the Labour Party promised to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) within a decade. This was reasserted in the recently published cross-government strategy (Home Office, 2025). The focus from government coincides with a new wave of cutting-edge economic research, which is advancing our understanding of the causes, costs and consequences of gender-based violence, and highlighting the wider importance of what has been traditionally treated primarily as a legal or social issue. The definition for VAWG has varied across jurisdictions and across time. However, today it is widely agreed that it covers more than intimate partner violence or domestic abuse.1 In this piece, we summarise recent advances in the field, focusing on the effects VAWG has on victims, and some of the emerging international evidence on the economic impacts of domestic abuse, sexual assault and workplace harassment. We conclude with some thoughts on prospects for further work in this area in the UK.

Abuse and financial control

Across a cluster of recent studies, all conducted using high-quality administrative data from Finland and co-authored by Abi Adams, one key finding stands out: physical violence often also results in, or coincides with, economic harm.

One of these studies showed that women who move in with an abusive partner (one who is later reported for domestic abuse) experience an average 12% decline in their income (approximately €1,600 annually) compared with similar women who move in with non-abusive partners who are otherwise similar and a 6.7 percentage point fall in employment (Adams et al., 2024a). These losses persist even after the relationship ends, indicating long-term damage to labour market attachment and career progression.

Crucially, these effects are not limited to women who experience physical violence themselves. Women who cohabit with a man who has previously been physically abusive to other cohabiting women also suffer statistically identical income and employment declines, even in the absence of recorded physical abuse within their own relationship. This pattern is consistent with coercive control: financial sabotage, job interference, and isolation tactics used to create dependency and limit autonomy. These findings expand the scope of economic theory on household bargaining and match the emerging legal recognition of economic abuse.

Workplace harassment

Violence against women also extends to the workplace. Another of the studies using Finnish data finds that women who are sexually or physically assaulted at work experience significant labour market harms, including job loss, reduced hours and lower income (Adams et al., 2024b). Moreover, perpetrators experience larger employment losses when their victims are men rather than women, pointing to systemic gender bias in how harm is perceived and addressed. This study also highlights the important role of management and, in particular, the gender of managers: female-managed organisations (defined here as those that have an above-median share of women in high-earning positions) are significantly more likely to dismiss perpetrators, while male-managed ones lose female employees after an attack on a female colleague. The implication is that organisational structures and gendered power dynamics shape both the incidence and the fallout of workplace violence.

The long-term impacts of violence

One stark finding from recent research is just how long-lasting the economic impacts of sexual violence are. Adams et al. (2026) find that women who report rape experience large, persistent drops in employment and earnings. The hit to income (17% on earnings, five years after the assault for older victims) is comparable in magnitude to the long-run ‘child penalty’ in Denmark found by Kleven, Landais and Søgaard (2019) – who find a long-run gender gap in earnings of around 20% – and larger than the effect of a year-long incarceration sentence in the United States found by Garin et al. (2025), who find a year-long sentence decreases cumulative earnings over five years by 13%. These effects do not fade over time. The study also identifies lower likelihood of job retention and reduced firm tenure, consistent with psychological trauma, stigma and workplace instability playing a role. The study demonstrates how violence reverberates through survivors’ economic lives. It also provides evidence that higher ‘clearance rates’ for rape cases reduce the economic harm experienced by victims. That is, in municipalities in which a greater fraction of police reports led to a court case, the economic impacts on victims were smaller. This underscores the potential for improvements in the effectiveness of law enforcement to mitigate the impacts of sexual violence, and points to the need for more research into the positive role that the police and other organisations could play in addressing this challenge – especially given concerns about the effectiveness of some tools currently in use (BBC, 2025).

Insights from the wider economics literature

In addition to this recent flurry of papers using Finnish data, a substantial international literature has established how economic structures influence the likelihood and consequences of gender-based violence. A central insight is that increasing women’s financial autonomy reduces exposure to abuse. Aizer (2010) shows that narrowing the gender wage gap in the United States leads to lower rates of domestic violence. Bobonis, González-Brenes and Castro (2013) find that directing cash transfers to women in Mexico decreases intimate partner violence. Cesur et al. (2022) provide quasi-experimental evidence that expanding income support through the US Earned Income Tax Credit reduces rates of intimate partner violence.

Another strand of economic research has shown that violence also generates long-term and intergenerational economic harm. Bhuller et al. (2024) show that exposure to domestic violence in Norway worsens victims’ mental health and also reduces educational attainment for their children. Similarly, Bindler and Ketel (2022) document persistent earnings losses and increased reliance on social benefits following criminal victimisation, while Currie and Spatz Widom (2010) find that childhood abuse leads to lower employment and earnings in adulthood. These findings demonstrate that the consequences of violence extend well beyond the moment of harm and can affect both victims and the next generation.

Research in the UK

There has been comparably less research conducted in a UK setting, but a small number of studies do exist. Using data from the West Midlands, Amaral et al. (2023) find that arrest for domestic violence reduces future 999 calls for domestic violence from the same address by more than 50% in the following year. The authors show that this is due to a reduction in repeat victimisation, rather than a change in reporting behaviour (e.g. due to a fear of retaliation). The conclusion is that arrest has a strong deterrent effect on (potential) offenders, and that lowering the threshold for arrest would reduce the amount of domestic violence: law enforcement plays an important role.

In a similar vein, Black et al. (2023) use detailed data from the Greater Manchester Police to examine how different responses affect the chances of repeat domestic abuse. They find that when police bring criminal charges against abusers, the likelihood of recidivism (reoffending) falls by almost 40%. In contrast, carrying out a formal risk assessment and offering protective services to victims does not appear to reduce the probability of violence happening again. In terms of law enforcement policy, this study suggests that criminal charges are a much more effective tool for protecting victims than risk assessments.

Anderberg et al. (2016) use UK data to examine the relationship between unemployment and domestic violence, concluding that female unemployment increases the risk of domestic abuse while male unemployment reduces it. This is consistent with the theory and evidence discussed above, whereby financial dependence heightens vulnerability, and demonstrates the impacts that economic conditions – and economic policy – can have on gender-based violence.

Conclusion

Gender-based violence has not historically been a major area of study for economists. Yet, in parallel with sociology and the law, it is also an economic matter. It reduces labour market participation, deepens inequality, and limits freedom of choice. It can also be driven by economic factors: women’s financial autonomy is tremendously important. This emerging and growing field of research, applying economic tools to the study of gender-based violence, can help to improve our understanding of this important issue, and improve our ability to predict and mitigate harm.

Much of the research to date has been conducted elsewhere – in large part due to the availability of high-quality administrative data. In places such as Finland and other Nordic countries, detailed police records can be linked to individual earnings and information about firms. In the UK, research is hampered by the absence of such a link. In 2019 the Home Office estimated the economic and social costs of domestic abuse at £66 billion (Home Office, 2019), which the National Audit Office (NAO) estimated to have risen to £84 billion by 2025 (National Audit Office, 2025). However, the NAO also notes that there has not been an effective whole-system response. In the battle against gender-based violence, if we are to truly understand how to best prevent and reduce it, better data and further analysis would be a huge gain.

References

Adams, A., Huttunen, K., Nix, E. and Zhang, N., 2024a. The dynamics of abusive relationships. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 139(4), 2135–80, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjae022.

Adams, A., Huttunen, K., Nix, E. and Zhang, N., 2024b. Violence against women at work. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 139(2), 937–91, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad045.

Adams, A., Huttunen, K., Nix, E. and Zhang, N., 2026. The economic impacts of rape. IFS Working Paper 26/15, https://ifs.org.uk/publications/economic-impacts-rape.

Aizer, A., 2010. The gender wage gap and domestic violence. American Economic Review, 100(4), 1847–59, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27871277.

Amaral, S., Dahl, G. B., Endl-Geyer, V., Hener, T. and Rainer, H., 2023. Deterrence or backlash? Arrests and the dynamics of domestic violence. NBER Working Paper 30855, https://www.nber.org/papers/w30855.

Anderberg, D., Rainer, H., Wadsworth, J. and Wilson, T., 2016. Unemployment and domestic violence: theory and evidence. Economic Journal, 126(597), 1947–79, https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12246.

BBC, 2025. Domestic abuse screening tool doesn’t work, minister says. 26 August, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr4e7yrxkgvo.

Bhuller, M., Dahl, G. B., Løken, K. V. and Mogstad, M., 2024. Domestic violence reports and the mental health and well-being of victims and their children. Journal of Human Resources, 59(S), S152–86, https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.1222-12698R1.

Bindler, A. and Ketel, N., 2022. Scaring or scarring? Labor market effects of criminal victimization. Journal of Labor Economics, 40(4), 939–70, https://doi.org/10.1086/718515.

Black, D., Grogger, J., Kirchmaier, T. and Sanders, K., 2023. Criminal charges, risk assessment and violent recidivism in cases of domestic abuse. CEP Discussion Paper 1897, https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1897.pdf.

Bobonis, G. J., González-Brenes, M. and Castro, R., 2013. Public transfers and domestic violence: the roles of private information and spousal control. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 5(1), 179–205, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23358341.

Cesur, R., Rodriguez-Planas, N., Roff, J. and Simon, D., 2022. Intimate partner violence and income: quasi-experimental evidence from the Earned Income Tax Credit. NBER Working Paper 29930, https://www.nber.org/papers/w29930.

Currie, J. and Spatz Widom, C., 2010. Long-term consequences of child abuse and neglect on adult economic well-being. Child Maltreatment, 15(2), 111–20, https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559509355316.

Garin, A., Koustas, D., McPherson, C., Norris, S., Pecenco, M., Rose, E. K., Shem-Tov, Y. and Weaver, J., 2025. The impact of incarceration on employment, earnings, and tax filing. Econometrica, 93(2), 503–38, https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA22028.

Home Office, 2019. The economic and social costs of domestic abuse. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-economic-and-social-costs-of-domestic-abuse.

Home Office, 2022. Violence against women and girls national statement of expectations (accessible). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/violence-against-women-and-girls-national-statement-of-expectations-and-commissioning-toolkit/violence-against-women-and-girls-national-statement-of-expectations-accessible.

Home Office, 2025. Freedom from violence and abuse: a cross-government strategy. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/freedom-from-violence-and-abuse-a-cross-government-strategy.

Kleven, H., Landais, C. and Søgaard, J. E., 2019. Children and gender inequality: evidence from Denmark. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 11(4), 181–209, https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20180010.

National Audit Office, 2025. Tackling violence against women and girls. https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/tackling-violence-against-women-and-girls/.