European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)

EIGE

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European Institute for Gender Equality, Gedimino pr. 16, LT-01103 Vilnius, Lithuania

EIGE.SEC@eige.europa.eu

+370 5 215 7444

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04/08/2021

04/08/2021

04/08/2021

The indicator presents the estimated annual costs of gender-based and intimate partner violence at the EU and Member State levels.

The findings are based on EIGE’s 2021 report on The costs of gender-based violence in the European Union. The costs were estimated using existing methodology from EIGE’s 2014 study entitled ‘Estimating the costs of gender-based violence in the European Union.’

The indicator provides data on:

• Two types of violence: gender-based violence, and intimate partner violence, and
• Eight types of costs: Lost economic output; Health services; Criminal justice system; Civil justice system; Social welfare; Personal costs; Specialist services; and Physical and emotional impact.

The indicator classifies data by:

• Geographic area: EU (total); 27 EU Member States; and the UK.
• Sex of the victim: Women and men.
• Types of violence: Gender-based violence and intimate partner violence.
• Type of costs: Lost economic output; Health services; Criminal justice system; Civil justice system; Social welfare; Personal costs; Specialist services; and Physical and emotional impact.

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• Gender-based violence: Violence directed against a person because of their gender, including physical violence, sexual violence, psychological violence, and economic violence.
• Intimate partner violence: Any act of physical, sexual, psychological or economic violence that occurs between former or current spouses or partners, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the victim.
• Lost economic output costs: The costs associated with the loss of a victim’s productivity at work and the time taken off work as a consequence of crime.
• Health services costs: The costs associated with the victim’s use of health services to treat the physical and mental harms caused.
• Criminal justice system costs: The costs associated with investigating cases of violence against women (e.g., police-time spent on cases). In addition, these costs also include ‘no-crime costs’ for police time spent on assault-related domestic incidents.
• Civil justice system costs: The costs associated with a victim’s use of the civil justice system to disentangle themselves from a violent perpetrator. This may take the form of matrimonial proceedings (such as divorce and judicial separation) or proceedings related to children.
• Social welfare costs: The costs associated with housing victims of violence, and homelessness prevention.
• Personal costs: Additional costs incurred by victims, not covered by the government (e.g., moving expenses, housing aid, and child protection).
• Specialist services costs: The costs associated with the use of government-funded specialist services for the prevention and/or mitigation of gender-based and intimate partner violence.
• Physical and emotional impact costs: The costs associated with the reduction in the quality of life of victims of gender-based and intimate partner violence.

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EU Member States

2019

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EIGE publishes the results in its dedicated Gender Statistics Database:

https://eige.europa.eu/gender-statistics/dgs

No regular news releases.

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https://eige.europa.eu/gender-statistics/dgs

No micro-data are disseminated.

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Documentation on the methodological approach adopted by EIGE to conduct research on the costs of violence against women can be found in EIGE’s 2021 technical report.

For more information on the method of data collection, please also refer to Section 20.3 of these metadata.

Please refer to sections 14 and 20.5 of these metadata.

After the Member State level costs were extrapolated, the calculated costs were systematically reviewed to ensure coherence with the following reports:

• EIGE's 2021 report on The costs of gender-based violence in the European Union.
• EIGE’s accompanying 2021 technical report on the costs of gender-based violence in the European Union.
• EIGE’s 2014 report on Estimating the costs of gender-based violence in the European Union.

Quality assurance focused, mainly, on completeness, ensuring that data on all types of costs, and types of violence, have been calculated for each Member State. Afterwards, data was compared and sense-checked across Member States to help identify issues of non-comparability.

For further information, please see: Quality Considerations for EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database

Overall, the data on estimated costs of gender-based and intimate partner violence can be considered of good quality, collected from reliable sources and with careful application of a coherent methodology.

Further details on the specific methodological approaches used to assess the quality of the data can be found in EIGE’s 2021 technical report.

Gender-based violence is a widespread phenomenon in the European Union, affecting women disproportionally. Calculating the costs associated with gender-based and intimate partner violence can promote awareness amongst policy makers across the EU.

EIGE’s estimates illustrate that the cost of inaction greatly outweighs the cost of action, highlighting the need to prevent the recurrence of all forms of gender-based violence at the EU and Member State levels.

No user opinions have been collected.

All EU Member States are covered, as well as the UK.

Accuracy refers to the extent to which the data collected and used to populate the indicator on estimated costs of gender-based and intimate partner violence is ‘correct’.

The costs calculated are based on extrapolated data from the United Kingdom. In principle, the data accurately describes the landscape at the EU and national levels.

Further details on the specific methodological approaches used to ensure accuracy can be found in EIGE’s 2021 technical report.

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Data calculated on the estimated costs of gender-based and intimate partner violence is comparable across Member States.

Further details on the specific methodological approaches used to ensure geographical comparability can be found in EIGE’s 2021 technical report.

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The findings based on EIGE’s data collection have full internal coherence.

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Data based on estimated costs published in EIGE’s 2021 study on The costs of gender-based violence in the European Union.

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In 2021, EIGE published a report estimating The costs of gender-based violence in the EU, for the year 2019. The data presented in the database includes the findings published in EIGE’s 2021 report, as well as additional estimates calculated for each ‘type of cost’ at the Member State and EU levels.

The estimated costs for EU Member States were extrapolated from the costs calculated for the UK. EIGE calculated the costs in the UK based on data from the Home Office’s study on the Economic and Social Costs of Crime (2^nd edition). This approach adheres to the methodology of EIGE’s 2014 report on Estimating the costs of gender-based violence in the EU.

Further details on the specific methodological approaches used to collect data on the costs of gender-based and intimate partner violence can be found in EIGE’s 2021 technical report.

Data validation procedures have been described at point 12 (Quality management).

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