The purpose of this research brief by Adrienne Adams is to summarize current thinking about how to assess the impact of domestic violence on women’s financial well-being.

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 Women with abusive partners often face tremendous threats to their financial well-being and barriers to realizing their personal financial capability.  Abusers use physical, psychological, and economic tactics to isolate, control, exploit, and terrorize their partners.  For many women, these actions have devastating consequences.

Adams begins by discussing the measurement of abusers’ economically abusive actions and then briefly describes approaches for measuring the impact of abuse on three dimensions of women’s financial lives: 1) economic self-sufficiency through employment; 2) financial stability; and 3) subjective financial well-being. Finally, I conclude with a brief discussion of implications for practice and policy.