We have just published our first paper from our project.

It is called “Prevalence and Social Inequality in Experiences of Domestic Abuse Among Mothers of Young Children: A Study Using National Survey Data from Scotland” and has been published in the Journal of Interpesonal Violence. It can be found here:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0886260520980392

Some of the key findings are:

– Overall, 14% of mothers report experiencing abuse since the birth of their 6 year-old children who are part of the survey.

– The most commonly experienced forms of abuse were coercive control (11%), followed by physical violence (7%) and threats (7%).

– Compared to mothers in the highest income households, mothers on the lowest incomes were far more likely to experience any abuse, and they had 5 times greater odds of experiencing more types of abuse more often.

– For mothers who were both in the youngest age category and the poorest income category it is predicted that 1 in 3 experience some form of abuse. By contrast, 1 in 10 mothers who were neither in the youngest nor poorest categories are predicted to experience abuse.

– Mothers of a male study child were slightly more likely to experience abuse than mothers whose study-child was a girl (20% higher odds).