The link between poverty and domestic abuse. Why?

[Kindyeah]

I read a report which says that research consistently points to there being a link between the most deprived in society and domestic abuse. But I can’t see why.

I understand, of course, that deprivation increases the likelihood of depression etc. But I don’t believe that men are more likely to abuse women if they’re poorer. Surely it’s all about control? Why would richer men be less likely to abuse? Is it actually true, or is it that poorer women who leave abusive relationships are more likely to need the help of the Council, refuges, social services etc so they get picked up more, whilst richer women have the financial wherewithal to be able to leave and set themselves up without any outside involvement?

Would be really interested to hear from women who know more about this than me.

Also if violence is normalised it’s just an unthinking reaction to stress.

Taking statistics at face value is never a good idea.

The women most likely to come to the attention of social services and other agencies are the ones who flee without having the means to support themselves & their dc or to pay for housing.

Affluent women leaving their abusers are more able to afford to find somewhere else to live and wouldn't need to trouble the authorities, so they fly under the official figures radar.

There was an opinion poll many years ago in the USA where everyone was convinced that the Republicans were going to win hands down because they were coming high in the opinion polls. Thing is... they conducted the opinion polls by telephone, and at that time, only the relatively well-off had a phone at home. And they tended to vote Republican. The statistics were fundamentally flawed.

I think that men who feel they are not in control of their own lives like to control someone else and feel superior to them.

It makes it significantly more difficult if you can't afford to leave.

I'm saying that without reading this mystery report there's no way to ascertain the credibility of it, but that there could be other factors that could present a link that's not what we think it is. For example the prevalence of reporting amongst poorer communities as opposed to more affluent communities would present as a much, much higher rate of dv incidents in those communities. As well as the rate of people using services that specialise in domestic abuse. It all really depends on where the data used in the report has been pulled from and in what context its been read.

I think it is also true that Billy Big Boss who can order everyone around at work may also have a tendency to be like that at home.

This is an interesting discussion but without the actual stats and the research from the OP we are just guessing what they say. We know poverty exacerbates abuse and why lower income women are especially vulnerable but I would be wary of stating poor men are more likely abuse than wealthy ones without any data. I am the daughter of a working class abuser but my colleague was murdered by her wealthy boyfriend.

Dominique Pelicot was not a poor man, neither were Savile, Epstein, P Diddy, Bill Cosby etc.

This guy was not poor and neither were his victims.

And further to this- it depends on what definition of domestic abuse the report is using. Is it intimate partner violence or just any violence that occurs in a domestic setting? Is it physical violence or is it taking into account the other types of domestic abuse?

Without knowing this it's impossible to have a clear discussion on the credibility of the link op is posting about and why it exists or doesn't exist.

Surely it's about lack of intelligence and education. Lack of stable role models. Lack of experience talking about their emotions in an intelligent way.

These qualities make them low earners as well as unable to manage conflict.

WTF?!

Successful, professional men have a different abuse profile. In order to be successful you generally have to have fairly good self control and regulation, and be able to come across as charming. Lots of very successful corporate psychopaths out there, who don’t necessarily need to use their fists to be controlling, but are still very nasty. If you’ve ever worked in say, city law, you can see how a lot of them would make horrific husbands.

Lots of ‘well off’ women have just as much difficulty leaving. Not least if the abuse is primarily psychological and your friends and family find him charming. And you haven’t worked for years and actually don’t have access to money of your own. And you can’t take the kids out of private school to go to a refuge and you know he’ll use his corporate lawyer skills to win in court and take the kids, just because he hates you and he can.

@AquaPeer I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts - why WTF?

Why would someone in poverty be less intelligent than anyone else?!?

I've worked with the wives of judges, teachers, social workers, community workers, solicitors, police, clergy, successful business owners. Very emotionally intelligent, "pillars of their communities", social chameleon type of men. Very well educated and most definitely intelligent who are well able to manage conflict. Who have a deep need for control. The key here is that domestic abuse is INTENTIONAL, its not something someone does by accident or mistake or because they're to stupid or unaware. They're doing it because they want to, because they can and they're doing it on purpose. I can honestly say in all the years of listening to women tell me about the horrors they've endured I've never once heard a story that didn't have some element to it that let me know that the guy was in complete control of himself when he was doing what he was doing. Whether it was the positioning of brusing to avoid visible body parts, stopping halfway through to go out with his mates and then coming home to continue, stopping in the middle of an assault to close the window and getting a pillow for her to scream into. Always, always in control and knowing exactly what they were doing. Until we as a society recognise that key aspect of domestic abuse we will keep letting women down via the "he couldn't help it" narrative- he couldn't help not having the emotional intelligence, he couldn't help being angry, he couldn't help the effect of the drink... none of that keeps men as accountable as they should be.

@AquaPeer by no means am I saying all people in poverty are low in intelligence - I absolutely know that's not true. I'm saying those who carry out domestic abuse are statistically more likely to be lacking in emotional intelligence, education, good role models, critical thinking, ability to control impulses.

You didn’t say emotional intelligence, you said intelligence. People in poverty are more likely to experience DA because they are less intelligent.

and I’m sure when put like that it’s not what you meant but I do think one of your first unconscious thoughts about people in poverty was “less intelligent”

This is the elephant in the room, but don't bother saying it here - no one wants to admit there's a correlation between intelligence/level of education and emotional regulation on MN. No idea why.

Instead let's pretend that most abusers are successful city lawyers who psychologically torture their wife and kids behind closed doors.

You just can’t say this. Intelligence is unmeasurable and subjective- there is simply no way to say one group are more intelligent than another.

before you argue the toss, colonials thought black people were less intelligent than whites for hundreds of years. Now we are intelligent enough to know there is no fair definition or measure of intelligence

Not to forget, also, that some affluent women have parents with big cars and big houses with spare bedrooms, and can collect and house an abused wife and her children at a moment's notice.

From my own experience as a child, my df's aggression and abuse came from his need to prove that he was a 'big man', the big cheese in his household.

He had not achieved anything academically despite a place at grammar school, in career terms or financially, because he was unable to work with those around him.

It infuriated him that his dcs (daughters especially) effortlessly gained places in higher education and good careers, left home, gained early independence meaning he had no further control, he hated the fact that we had money and cars and social lives and he could no longer dictate to us.

He did his best to wreck our chances and force us back under his control and he failed, which made him lash out at anyone within range.

It was all about his ego, about control and how he was perceived by the neighbours.

This post sums it up perfectly.

No one is saying highly emotionally intelligent people can't be abusers, but the way some on this thread are jumping over themselves to tell us there's an epidemic of unreported domestic abuse in affluent circles that would swing the stats in the opposite direction is ridiculous. (More affluent women 'wouldn't trouble the authorities'? Really?)

What stats?

Reports are only as good as the data used in them.

In this case, it's compromised by the greater ability for wealthier abusers to go undetected -

Fewer neighbours close by to report,
The ability to come across as absolutely plausible and a veritable Pillar of the Community when saying 'Of course, she has mental problems, you know, it's all so very difficult',
The greater number of options for escape when a victim has access to money to be able to leave, family or friends with room for them to stay,
No problems buying another property or taking out a rental contract,
No difficulty affording short term childcare options rather than relying upon the partner or a member of their family,
Being able to buy food, clothing and pay for travel expenses instead of having to wait for a UC application to go through after leaving,
Less imperative to report the abuse so that the local authority housing department will accept an application,
A greater reluctance to report because 'Nobody will believe me, we have such a lovely home/he would be suspended from work and everybody would know'
'We're not that sort of family'
'He's very stressed in his high power job, it's not really abuse'
'It'll be seen as a way to get full custody/house/punish him because he has friends who are lawyers/can afford the best lawyers/will come across really well in court'
and a bit of 'But then I'd have to go on benefits, I can't do that to the children and he'll take them away if I have to live in a tiny flat on an estate miles away from school and can't pay school fees because I've had to leave my job'

I think those factors significantly impact the data relating to wealthier households.

And there's also the consideration that the people doing the research are inherently more likely to be of the higher income group themselves - so they wouldn't necessarily think of other metrics beyond tracking income level and number of police reports to measure the factors around rates of abuse.

You can also add in potential biases introduced by the purpose of the research - is it to justify reductions in support in wealthier areas, to increase support in poorer ones, to draw in sympathetic higher income people to make donations because they see 'children in poverty due to abuse', rather than just terrified women and children who they might see as perfectly capable of leaving due to income? Is it in the interests of who is funding the study for violence to be seen as something that happens to poor women, not theoretically (ie, taking into account financial abuse) or actually wealthier ones?

I don't think the rate is the same, as the lower income group will include a lot of other contributory factors, such as mental health and learning disabilities - but I think they could be closer were other methodologies also utilised.

How do you know all this when you haven’t seen the data the OP is talking about?

My ex wife went to public school and had a First but had an interesting track record of DV both as a perp and allegedly a victim.

Both my brothers work in Aviation and my middle son when younger (about 8) used to like watching Air Crash Investigation, which my wife & I had to watch first just in case there was anything he might not like.

I have also read The Heat of the Moment by Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton.

OK so whats the relevance? Well Air Accident Investigators were early users of 'Human Factors' and 'The Heat of the moment' is about the authors life and career as a fire fighter, its also about 'human factors on firefighting'

So if you are poor you end up under constant stress, this means that you have less ability to deal with the sort of everyday odure life throws at you. So when something comes up that you need to react to its more likley that you will not be able to act appropriately which either means you do something that gets you into trouble or doesnt help the situation.

You only have to watch 'Chav Camera Action' to see this happen.

Also Martin Lewis is talking about the links between poverty and mental health