Does domestic violence affect employment status and other job-related experiences of women who have been victimized
by their male partners?

There are no simple answers, according to initial findings from a three-year study by Susan Lloyd on the “Effects of Violence on Work and Family.” Instead, she found “multiple associations between male violence and female labor force participation.” In many cases, there were strong negative effects of verbal and physical abuse and coercion, especially for younger women and mothers on public aid. But in some cases, the outcomes were either positive or ambiguous.

To explain these results, Lloyd suggests that the impact on employment probably reflects differences in women’s re-sponses as well as differences in the resources available to them. Some are motivated to seek paid employment to end abusive relationships while others are prevented by coercive male partners from even getting to their jobs.

The findings also suggest that women’s experience with violence may influence their labor market experiences over time rather than at any given moment in time. While Lloyd found evidence that current employment status appears unaffected, human capital characteristics, such as physical and psychological health, and past spells of unemployment do appear to be significantly affected.

Lloyd reports these findings in “Domestic Violence and Women’s Employment,” the lead article in the Spring 1998 issue of NU Policy Research, IPR’s electronic journal. Lloyd is currently a director of the Program on Human and Community Development at the MacArthur Foundation, and a research affiliate at the Joint Center for Poverty Research.

Lloyd gathered data from a random household survey of 824 adult women in the predominantly black and Hispanic community of Humboldt Park in Chicago. She followed this up with 24 in-depth interviews with respondents. The average annual wage of respondents was $3570 and nearly half were the primary source of their household income.

Many told stories of intimidation and fear. They described husbands and boyfriends who disrupted their childcare or transportation arrangements, caused them to go to work bruised and broken, or harassed them at work with phone calls. Forty percent of the respondents reported male aggression, and 28.4% told of severe aggression over the course of their adult relationships with men. In the previous 12-month period, 40% of the women reported attempts by their male partners to control them; nearly 20% had experienced physical abuse, and 12% a more severe form of aggression.

Impact on Employment. In addition to being predominantly younger women, mothers, and AFDC recipients, victims of domestic abuse and coercion were more likely to have experienced unemployment, held more jobs, and endured more health problems than non-victims, Lloyd found. They also had lower incomes and greater reliance on public assistance.

According to the study, “those who reported being controlled, harassed, or threatened in the past 12 months reported average incomes $215 lower than those who did not.” Average income was $211 lower for victims of pushing, shoving or grabbing, and beating or rape victims reported income $997 lower than those who had not experienced severe aggression.

Lloyd also found that more than half her sample had been unemployed during a period when they wanted to work. Victims of male violence were far more likely to suffer bouts with depression, anxiety, and anger. And they said the physical and psychological problems stemming from their abusive relationships affected their performance on the job.

Striving Harder. On the positive side, some female victims viewed employment as a safety valve to improve their lives. They shared a strong belief that personal finances could help extricate them from abusive relationships. Many carefully planned and executed their departures. They also recognized that employment enabled them to be more selective in their choice of a partner and to negotiate fairer, safer arrangements.

Given these findings, Lloyd recommends that policy-makers adopt a “nuanced approach” to low-income victims of domestic abuse. She cautions that some AFDC recipients may find it especially difficult to meet the work and other requirements mandated by the new federal and state welfare regulations and “for safety’s sake” may require exemptions from labor force participation or requirements to establish paternity.

Noting that some low-income women have used public assistance money to avoid or exit abusive relationships, Lloyd recommends that policymakers consider preserving this option for women at risk of violence. And she suggests that job training programs that emphasize both immediate and longer term employment may offer benefits for welfare recipients well beyond simple compliance with the time limits on eligibility.

The NUPR article may be accessed at www.northwestern.edu/IPR/publications/nupr/nuprv03n1/lloyd.html. See the Poverty Center web site at www.jcpr.org to order the working paper.