Reimagining welfare to mitigate violence against women
Family violence has been on the government agenda for several years now, but one issue that is seldom raised is the role of financial insecurity as a driver of violence. In today’s analysis, Phoebe Nagorca-Smith of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand (@GoodAdvocacy) explains how the gendered experience of the welfare system increases women’s risk of violence.
Limited and unequal access to finances is linked to violence
The evidence linking financial insecurity and experience of violence keeps growing. For example, following the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, ANROWS surveyed over 10,000 Australian women about their experiences of financial hardship and intimate partner violence. Their results showed that experiences of economic insecurity were significantly associated with sexual, physical, and non-physical abuse. Financial stress increased the risk of experiencing physical or sexual violence, or emotionally abusive, harassing or controlling behaviours for the first time. Women who had lost work or taken a pay cut were more likely to experience physical or sexual violence from their partner for the first time. A partner’s loss of work or income was also associated with in increased risk of first-time violence, and escalation in frequency and severity of existing physical violence, and emotionally abusive, harassing and controlling behaviours. On the flip side, when women’s financial situation had improved compared to 12 months ago, they were more likely to see a de-escalation in violence.
Financial insecurity is a primary risk factor for family violence. Thoughtful policy reform could fix this. Photo by Alexander Dummer on Pexels
In addition to general financial stress or insecurity, a disparity in access to resources between partners was associated with violence. Financial precarity, specifically when one partner was able to find $2000 within a week for an emergency but the other could not, increased the likelihood of violence, as did women having low levels of social support, and one partner but not the other losing work.
The gendered nature of income and financial security is inherently linked to gendered norms of inequality, based on the presumption that men should be providing for the family and exerting financial control. While limited access to finances for women both increases the risk of violence and creates barriers to escape, women in the breadwinner role also have increased risk, perhaps experiencing backlash for breaking gender roles. In addition to gender, other identities and experiences shape people’s experience of violence: women with chronic illness or disability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women who had been pregnant in the previous year, and women living with children were all more likely to report violence in the previous 12 months.
How does this relate to Centrelink payments?
Payments that are frequently relied on by women create financial insecurity through low payment rates, sudden cuts to payments, and a requirement to use up existing savings before being eligible for payments. Reviews of Centrelink programs over the years are littered with stories of stress, hardship, and forced dependence on family.
A Good Shepherd report into the experiences of women engaged with Welfare to Work found that the program not only didn’t achieve its goals of supporting employment and self-reliance, but also contributed to financial insecurity. Participants struggled to meet basic expenses such as food, rent, and transport. Many women also faced sudden cuts to funding due to miscommunication between Centrelink and their provider or ‘non-compliance’, which took significant time and effort to reinstate. Longer-term financial security was compromised through disincentives to work, such as cuts to Centrelink payment rates when paid work was secured, or encouragement into precarious and low-paid employment rather than secure, well-paid employment that aligned with individual goals.
More recently it was reported that one third of ParentsNext participants - over 55,000 people, the vast majority of which were mothers of young children - have had their payments suspended, and over a thousand had payments cancelled altogether. An inquiry into the program found that 85% of suspensions and cancellations were due to administrative errors, for example when women had valid reasons for not meeting compliance tasks. This is for a program described as ‘a support service’ that will ‘help you with your study and work goals.’ While suspensions are automatic, reinstating them can be difficult. If a payment is cancelled, participants need to wait 28 days before reapplying, leaving families without income for an entire month. Issues with the ParentsNext program disproportionately impact Indigenous women: 21% of Parents Next participants are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders.
Disability Support Pension (DSP) participants lose access to the payment if they choose to live with their partners, making them financially dependent. This forced reliance on partners is deeply problematic in the context in which many disabled and chronically ill people live, including high medical costs, employment discrimination, skewed power dynamics between disabled people and others who provide care for them (often family), and an increased risk of physical and sexual violence. In addition to being more likely to experience violence, disabled women can face additional barriers to escape once access to the Disability Support Pension has been removed: no independent access to financial resources, and reliance on their partner for care and transport.
And then, of course, there is JobSeeker. Women make up the vast majority of participants who access JobSeeker for more than one year. This typically includes women who are over 60 and not yet eligible for the Aged Pension, women who are chronically ill or disabled but do not meet gendered DSP or NDIS criteria, and women with children who have ‘aged out’ of the Single Parenting Payment. With payment rates below the poverty line, and a requirement that people use up their savings before applying (the threshold is $5,500 for singles or $11,000 for singles with children or partnered people), the program structure encourages financial precarity.
So what?
Engagement with Centrelink programs currently creates risk of sudden financial loss which are overwhelmingly not the fault of the participant, decreases access to emergency funds (savings), and creates financial inequality and dependence between women who live with their partners. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, disabled women, and women with children are represented at high rates amongst program participants. And recent Australian research from ANROWS shows that every single one of these factors is associated with an increased risk of violence.
If the government is serious about tackling violence against women, they need to look at prevention in addition to response. This includes dismantling and restructuring systems, including social security, that enable and increase the risk of violence. We know that restructuring Centrelink programs can have enormous benefits for participants. When payments were increased and compliance obligations dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic, participants reported being able to meet basic expenses for the first time, and having more time to search for meaningful and secure work. It substantially increased quality of life, enabling participants to make viable long-term plans for the financial security of their households.
This is why social support systems, and the people they serve, benefit from an intersectional gender impact assessment and responsive design. The impact that policy has on people does not always align with its intention, and it is often the same groups of marginalised people who are hurt by poor design. A social security system that is built with women at the centre, particularly women who are Aboriginal, disabled, and/or mothers, would prevent violence rather than drive it. It might increase payment rates to above the poverty line, remove assumptions that disabled people can or should rely on partners for financial support, eliminate punitive compliance measures, abolish automated administrative systems with high error rates and devastating consequences, or provide immediate support for people needing financial assistance, without waiting periods or low asset tests.
Such a system is possible, and armed with evidence that relying on our current social security system is likely to increase a woman’s risk of violence, we need to see that it is realised.
This post is part of the Women's Policy Action Tank initiative to analyse government policy using a gendered lens. View our other policy analysis pieces here.
Posted by @SusanMaury