IPV is incredibly prevalent. In fact, 10 million people experience domestic abuse annually in the United States alone. One in three women and one in four men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner. Think about that for a moment. That means if you’re in a room of three women, the odds are that one of those women has experienced domestic violence.

What is considered domestic violence? It actually encompasses a range of behaviors, including but not limited to:

·         Physical abuse

·         Sexual abuse

·         Verbal abuse

·         Emotional abuse

·         Reproductive coercion

·         Digital abuse

·         Financial abuse

Domestic violence obviously affects victims in many damaging ways; physically, emotionally, and beyond. A 2018 survey by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) revealed just how deeply domestic violence can affect survivors' education, career, and economic stability over the course of their lives.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the financial impact of domestic violence ranges from individual to societal. In fact, they say the lifetime economic cost associated with medical services, lost productivity from paid work, criminal justice, and other costs, was $3.6 trillion. The cost of domestic violence over a victim’s lifetime was $103,767 for women and $23,414 for men.

Eighty-three percent of respondents said abusive partners disrupted their ability to work. Of these, 70 percent were not able to have a job, and 53 percent lost a job because of the abuse. This tactic is a form of financial abuse, as abusers are preventing their victims from working and earning their own money. This disrupts the victim’s career aspirations and makes them finally reliant upon their abuser, thus making it harder for them to leave the relationship. This hurts individual victims and their families, but it also affects our society as a whole. In fact, the CDC includes loss of productivity in the workforce as part of the $3.6 trillion cost of domestic violence in the United States.

Over one-third of domestic violence survivors had also experienced sexual harassment or violence at work from a co-worker or supervisor. This kind of harassment and abuse can cause victims to either lose their jobs or force them to leave their jobs, putting them at financial risk. This can also disrupt their career trajectory, potentially making it more difficult for them to get another job in the future. This threatens their ability to earn money and support themselves.

While domestic violence is a serious human rights violation that impacts millions of women worldwide, it also has substantial economic consequences, new research from the World Bank Group (WBG) shows.

According to the WBG, domestic abuse imposes an economic burden on individuals, households, private businesses and the public sector through the cost of healthcare services used to treat victims, a loss of productivity and reduced income for women due to missed work.

“Employed women experiencing violence are often subject to a range of interference tactics by their partner undercutting their ability to maintain regular employment. Some of the tactics undermining efforts to get to work, [such as] hiding or stealing keys or transportation money, and not showing up to care for children,” the report said.

“Experiencing IPV is thus associated with increased absenteeism over the long term and presenteeism in the short term through tardiness, not showing up for work, and use of sick days as well as problems with concentration, job performance, and productivity,” it added.

The research estimates the productivity loss due to absenteeism caused by domestic violence in Uganda and Bangladesh, for example, was $87.76 million and $262 million, respectively in 2012. This is equivalent to almost 1.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for both countries.

In Bangladesh, the loss is equivalent to nearly 60 percent of what is spent on education and 40 percent of what is spent on health.

“This underscores that the loss due to domestic violence is a significant drain on an economy’s resources. Addressing this challenge head-on promises to significantly advance our efforts to end extreme poverty and increase prosperity for all,” said Jeni Klugman, Gender and Development Director at the WBG - which is a group of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to poor countries.

In the U.S., meanwhile, the cost of domestic abuse exceeds $5.8 billion per year: $4.1 billion for direct medical and health care services and nearly $1.8 billion for productivity losses, according to the United Nations.