The Role of Social Support in Mitigating Negative Effects of Economic Abuse Among a Community Based Sample of Women

Background: Economic abuse has received increasing attention from scholars and advocates as a form of intimate partner violence characterized by the use of economic control, exploitation, and sabotage.  Advocates have worked to develop and implement interventions aimed at increasing economic literacy, financial capability, and social supports for survivors.  A number of serious negative outcomes of EA have been identified, including consequences for the mental health and economic security of survivors.   However, EA has not been quantitatively examined outside of samples of women seeking IPV services, who could differ significantly in severity, impact, and need than those in the community at large. This project sought to answer the following questions: 1) Is there an association between experiencing Economic Abuse and experiencing Economic Hardship in a community based sample of women? 2) Does social support moderate the relationship between Economic Abuse and Economic Hardship?

Methods: A quantitative web-based survey comprised of demographic questions and a series of validated measures for key constructs was sent to a simple random sample of students attending four community college campuses.  Respondents (n=435) were females who had been in an intimate relationship in the past 12 months.  Sample: Participants average age was 27 years (SD 9.9).  Fifty-eight percent identified as white, while 27% identified as Black.  Almost 80% were currently working.  Measures: Economic Abuse was assessed using the Scale of Economic Abuse (12) (Postmus et al, 2012); Economic Hardship was assessed using the Economic Hardship Index (Adams et al, 2008); Social Support was assessed using the Appraisal and Tangible support subscales of the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (Payne et al, 2012).  Data Analysis: descriptive statistics, correlations, multiple regression, and moderation analyses (Hayes, 2013).

Results: The relationship between economic abuse and economic hardship was statistically significant when controlling for income, age, race, and number of children (β=.19, p=0.000).  Higher levels of economic abuse were associated with higher reported economic hardship.  Results indicated that appraisal support (β=.26, p=0.02) had a significant moderating effect on the relationship between economic abuse and economic hardship.  Higher levels of Appraisal support were associated with decreased economic hardship at lower levels of economic abuse, but not at higher levels of economic abuse.  Tangible support was associated with decreased economic hardship across all levels of economic abuse, and did not moderate the relationship between economic abuse and economic hardship.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates that economic abuse is associated with increased risk of economic hardship in the general population of women. Those developing and implementing interventions for economic abuse survivors should focus on reducing economic hardship through direct (tangible) assistance and increasing access to needed resources.  Interventions aimed at enhancing other forms of social support may have important utility for addressing emotional or mental health outcomes, but may not be effective in decreasing economic hardship among survivors experiencing high levels of economic abuse.  General population awareness and educational campaigns should include attention to economic forms of abuse.