It is time we stopped asking “why doesn’t she leave?” and started asking “how could she possibly afford to?”

A woman sits across from one of our caseworkers in Jannali. She has two children, a plan to leave, and $40 in an account her partner does not know about.

She has been saving for months. Hiding coins. Skipping meals so there is cash left over. She knows where the local refuge is. She knows what an ADVO is. She has the courage. What she does not have is the money.

This is not a rare story. At The Family Co., it is one of the most common ones we hear.

We have supported women and families across Southern Sydney for more than 38 years. In that time, the faces and circumstances have changed, but one thing has remained constant: financial control is one of the most powerful weapons an abusive partner can use. And right now, in the middle of Australia’s cost of living crisis, that weapon has never been sharper.

The trap is getting tighter

Let’s be direct about what is happening in Australia right now.

Median advertised rents have surged by nearly 50% over the past decade. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, rents paid nationally rose 5.5% (AIHW, 2025). Around 62% of Australians report that the cost of essentials is straining their budgets, and early 2026 brought a further jump in electricity bills as government rebates were wound back (Homely, February 2026).

For most families, this is stressful. For a woman planning to leave a violent relationship, it can be paralysing.

She is not just looking for any rental. She needs somewhere safe, with enough bedrooms for her children, in a location her partner cannot easily access, on a single income that may be well below the median. Research from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute found that a lack of affordable housing directly increases the risk that women will return to abusive relationships, because there is simply no safe, affordable alternative (AHURI, 2024).

The cost of living crisis did not create this problem. But it has all but closed the exits.

Economic abuse: the violence you cannot see

When most people think of domestic violence, they think of physical harm. But at The Family Co., we know that some of the most devastating abuse leaves no visible marks at all.

Economic abuse is when a partner controls, exploits or sabotages someone’s ability to earn, save or spend money. It can look like a partner who insists on managing all the finances. Who monitors every transaction. Who prevents their partner from working, studying or building any kind of financial independence. Who racks up debt in their partner’s name, or drains joint accounts without warning.

According to the ABS Personal Safety Survey, 16% of Australian women have experienced economic abuse by a partner in their lifetime (ABS, 2023). Among women seeking support for domestic and family violence, that figure rises to between 80 and 90% (ANROWS).

A landmark 2022 report by Deloitte Access Economics, commissioned by the Commonwealth Bank, estimated the direct cost of financial abuse to victims at $5.7 billion in a single year. That is $5.7 billion stripped from the bank accounts, the earning potential and the futures of more than 623,000 Australians, the vast majority of them women (Deloitte / CommBank, 2022).

And here is what makes economic abuse so insidious: many women do not even recognise it is happening until they try to leave.

The economic fallout lasts for years

A groundbreaking 2025 report from the University of Technology Sydney, led by Dr Anne Summers AO, put numbers to what frontline workers like ours have long known. Women who experience domestic violence pay a severe and lasting economic price.

The employment gap for women who had recently experienced economic abuse was 9.4%. Among those who were working when the violence occurred, more than a third took time off, averaging 31 days away. For young women, domestic violence reduced university degree attainment by nearly 10% within three years of the violence being first reported, with the annual earnings premium of a university degree estimated at 41%, the long-term financial cost is substantial. (Summers, UTS / Paul Ramsay Foundation, 2025).

Forty-four per cent of women who experienced violence in the past five years reported experiencing cash flow problems.

We see this play out every week in our work. A woman who has been out of the workforce for years because her partner would not allow her to hold a job. A mother whose credit is destroyed by debts she never agreed to. A young woman who dropped out of TAFE because her partner made it impossible for her to attend. These are not just data points. They are the women sitting in our offices, trying to figure out what comes next.

From surviving to thriving: what economic empowerment actually looks like

Economic empowerment is a phrase that gets used a lot in policy circles. But on the ground, in the communities we serve, it looks much more human than that.

It looks like a woman meeting with our Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Service team, understanding her legal rights for the first time, and realising she has options she did not know existed. It looks like a caseworker sitting alongside a mother, helping her develop a safety plan that includes opening her own bank account, accessing Centrelink entitlements she had been kept from, and mapping out a path to stable housing. It looks like a woman walking into a job interview after months of support from our team, her children settled in a new school, a sense of possibility returning for the first time in years.

It looks like someone moving from crisis to stability. From fear to confidence. From surviving to thriving.

This is the work The Family Co. does every day, across our domestic violence response services, our children, youth and family programs, our financial counselling support, and our community education. It is not one program or one intervention. It is a continuum of wrap-around support that meets women and families wherever they are on their journey and walks alongside them for as long as they need.

The power of $200

Here is something most people do not realise about the gap between leaving violence and rebuilding a life: it is often shockingly small amounts of money that make the difference.

A bond payment on a rental property. A full tank of petrol to get to a new town. School uniforms so children can start at a safer school without standing out. A prepaid phone so a woman can stay connected to her caseworker. A week of groceries while the first Centrelink payment is processed.

These costs fall outside standard government support. They sit in the space between crisis and recovery, and they are exactly where discretionary, flexible funding makes the greatest impact.

When someone donates to The Family Co., this is what their generosity makes possible. Not a line item in a budget. A turning point in a family’s life. The moment a woman stops having to choose between safety and survival, and starts being able to plan for both.

We cannot overstate how much this matters. Our frontline workers will tell you: it is often a few hundred dollars, delivered at exactly the right moment, that changes everything.

A message from our frontline

“The bravest moment is not always the one people expect. It is the moment a woman opens her own bank account for the first time. Or the moment she attends a job interview after years of being told she was not capable. That is where real change begins, and that is the work we are privileged to be part of every single day.”

• Mel, Domestic Violence Services Team Leader, The Family Co.

What needs to change

We need a more honest conversation in Australia about the intersection of economic inequality and domestic violence. The data is clear: when housing is unaffordable, when wages are stagnant, when the social safety net has gaps, it is women and children experiencing violence who fall through first.

But this is not a story without hope.

The Australian Government’s 2026 Status of Women Report Card noted that women’s workforce participation reached a record 63.1% in 2025 and that investments to support women’s safety under the National Plan have exceeded $4 billion since October 2022 (Working for Women, 2026; Budget 2025-26). Progress is being made at a policy level.

What we need now is for that progress to reach the women who need it most, in the communities where they live, through the organisations they trust.

That is where you come in.

How you can help

Donate. Your contribution directly funds the flexible, frontline support that helps women and families rebuild. It fills the gaps that government funding cannot. It turns a moment of crisis into the beginning of something new.

Donate now at thefamilyco.org.au/the-day-after

 

Talk about it. Share this article. Start the conversation in your workplace, your school, your community group. The more people who understand that domestic violence is an economic issue, not just a criminal one, the closer we get to real change.

Bring us into your workplace. The Family Co. offers Domestic and Family Violence Awareness Training through our Toolbox Talks program, with more than 10,000 people trained across Australia. If your organisation wants to be part of the solution, reach out to our Partnerships team.

If you or someone you know needs support

You are not alone. You deserve safety, and you deserve support to build a future beyond violence.

The Family Co. (02) 9528 2933 | thefamilyco.org.au | [email protected]

1800RESPECT 1800 737 732 (24/7, free and confidential)

Lifeline 13 11 14

Because safety is not just about escaping violence. It is about having the freedom to build a life beyond it.

Sources

1. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2025), Housing Affordability, AIHW, Australian Government. aihw.gov.au

2. Homely (2026), “Is there a cost of living crisis in Australia in 2026?”, February 2026. homely.com.au

3. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2023), Personal Safety, Australia, 2021-22. abs.gov.au

4. ANROWS, Responding to Economic Abuse. anrows.org.au

5. Deloitte Access Economics / Commonwealth Bank of Australia (2022), The Cost of Financial Abuse in Australia. commbank.com.au

6. Summers, A. (2025), The Cost of Domestic Violence to Women’s Employment and Education, UTS / Paul Ramsay Foundation. uts.edu.au

7. Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (2024), “What are the real costs of Australia’s housing crisis for women?”, AHURI Brief. ahuri.edu.au

8. Working for Women (2026), Status of Women Report Card 2026, Australian Government. genderequality.gov.au

9. Australian Government Budget 2025-26, Opportunity and Equality. budget.gov.au