Our Research Briefing, reporting on social inequalities in domestic abuse experiences is now live. You can download it here.

The key points are:

• Among mothers of young children, 14% report experiencing abuse in the 6 year period since the birth of their child who is in the study With c.320,000 children in Scotland currently aged under 7 years old, this means that approximately 45,000 children aged under 7 are potentially affected by domestic abuse.

• 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 , highlighting the impact of poverty.

• 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.

You can read more about this research in our journal publication available here.