2024 Network Awards – Established, Applied Research
Winner:
Anne Summers
Professor, University of Technology Sydney
Judges’ comments
This research has significantly influenced Federal Government policy, widening the eligibility of the Parenting Payment Single for 59,000 single parents and 100,000 children. There is strong evidence of engagement with government, community, and media stakeholders. The new use of ABS data and the development of a longitudinal study into social issues related to domestic violence show potential for even longer-term impact.
The initiative
Across the globe, domestic violence can affect as many as one in three women in their lifetime – with 275,000 Australian women currently suffering physical and/or sexual violence from their current cohabiting partner. Of these women, 90,000 wanted to leave but felt unable to do so; with a quarter of them saying the main reason was due to lack of money or financial support. These shocking findings were among never-before published data revealed in Anne Summers research report – The Choice: Violence or Poverty — based on a customised data provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) from its Personal Safety Survey, 2016.
The report revealed that a much-higher than previously known 60 per cent of single mothers had experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence from their previous partners and, furthermore, that this violence was the cause of their leaving the relationship and becoming single mothers. The report also revealed that around 50 per cent of these single mothers relied on government benefits for their principal income and were thus being forced to live in poverty. As were their children.
The report signalled the need for urgent policy changes to ensure that women who want to leave violent relationships can do so without being forced into poverty. Professor Summer’s findings featured several major recommendations to government, the principal one being a change to the Parenting Payment Single (PPS) eligibility to enable single parents to receive the payment until their youngest child reached 16 instead of 8.
How it was undertaken
Domestic and family violence is a complex, multidimensional issue with far-reaching impacts for generations of families. Addressing an urgent need to develop effective policies and financial provisions for the thousands of Australians who experience domestic violence, Professor Anne Summers was provided a Paul Ramsay Foundation (PRF) fellowship (hosted at UTS) to undertake original data-based research to cast new light on the incidence and nature of domestic violence in Australia.
Anne chose to focus on single mothers’ experiences of violence and its consequences because this group had previously and inexplicably been overlooked in research. To enable this project, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) created a totally new data set comprising 311,000 single mothers which included excruciating details about the violence endured by 60 per cent of them. Revealing these findings, The Choice report signaled the need for urgent policy changes – presenting major recommendations to government to ensure that women who want to leave violent relationships can do so without being forced into poverty.
The findings were so confronting that Anne wanted to ensure it had the widest possible audience. She did this by taking them direct to government by meeting with key Ministers (Treasurer, Finance) and undertaking a non-traditional (for academia) approach: making extensive media appearances. Communicating findings Anne wrote multiple opinion pieces for major Australian newspapers; appeared on multiple ABC broadcasts and hosted dissemination events at UTS and PRF. These efforts ensured the research reached the organisations and individuals that have been fighting to change the PPS since 2013.
Academic outcomes
Anne’s research had a major influence on the Federal Government’s budget deliberations, with the press reporting that Ministers were reading the report. The May 2023-24 Budget announced that from September 20, 2023 single parents will be able to remain on the PSS until their youngest child turned 14 – replacing the previous limit of 8. In a press conference announcing the changes Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese acknowledged Anne’s research.
The outcome of this report, and subsequent changes to the PPS, meant that some 57,000 single parents (90 per cent of them women) and around 100,000 children will receive an increase of $176.90 per fortnight and be subject to more relaxed indexation and tapering rules than apply to the Job Seeker payment they previously were forced to subsist on.
The project findings were published in the report: Summers, A. (2022). The Choice: Violence or Poverty. University of Technology Sydney. https://doi.org/10.26195/3s1r-4977 [downloaded 376 times] and the Paul Ramsay Foundation site violenceorpoverty.com [downloaded an additional 5,500 times from]. In 2024 the report was highly commended by the Financial Times Responsible Business Education Awards.
Hosted by the UTS Business School, with continued support from the Paul Ramsay Foundation, Anne is continuing this important research with a focus on two key projects: (1) A data-based investigation of the impact of domestic violence on women’s employment, and (2) The development of a new longitudinal study that will seek to obtain key data on relevant social issues related to domestic violence, with a particular focus on perpetrators.