The three forms of financial violence against women
Financial violence leaves no bruises, but it profoundly marks women’s life trajectories. This is the picture that emerges from a study conducted by SDA Bocconi School of Management for Pomellato: The price of freedom. How financial violence against women manifests itself.
The phenomenon cuts across age groups, territories, levels of education, and income. It does not concern only situations of extreme vulnerability, but also couples that appear “normal,” integrated, and educated. In Italy, seven women out of ten have experienced or witnessed episodes of discrimination or financial violence.
Financial violence is also, or above all, a limitation of freedom. Controlling money, devaluing the other person’s work, and obstructing their professional autonomy affect their ability to choose, their decision-making power, and their capacity to imagine their own future. This type of violence, therefore, entails a silent, often normalized cost, with deep implications for individuals, companies, and the financial system as a whole.
A pervasive and invisible violence
Public debate has begun to recognize financial violence as one of the most pervasive and least visible forms of gender-based violence. But how does it manifest itself in concrete terms? Which behaviors sustain it? Is it a phenomenon linked only to marginal contexts, or does it also involve the middle and upper classes? And what role do work, motherhood, and financial skills play?
The research conducted by SDA Bocconi arises precisely from these questions, with a dual objective: on the one hand, to measure the prevalence of financial violence in Italy; on the other, to understand its forms, cultural determinants, and connections with the labor market and financial education. Particular attention is devoted to couple dynamics, where money often becomes a lever of power rather than a neutral tool for organizing family life.
Restriction, sabotage, exploitation
The research team carried out a quantitative survey on a representative sample of 2,500 people (women and men), stratified by age, geographic area, income level, and education. The average age of the sample is 52, and 41% of respondents have children, a choice that makes it possible to closely observe the intersection between work, family, and financial autonomy.
The research identifies three macro-forms of financial violence.
The first is financial restriction. This is a form of violence in which the perpetrator limits or monitors the victim’s access to money and financial resources, conditioning spending and decision-making power. Thirty-nine percent of women report being subjected to control over financial decisions (“he manages, she adapts”), 51% experience a devaluation of their professional contribution, and 48% a limitation in access to personal accounts and assets. Even among women with a university degree, one in four is exposed to these dynamics, a sign that education alone is not a sufficient protection.
The second form is financial sabotage, a type of violence in which the perpetrator obstructs the victim’s work and/or studies, sabotaging means, time, and opportunities in order to prevent the construction of financial and professional autonomy. This form of violence does not take away what a woman has, but prevents her from obtaining what she could have. Forty-eight percent of women are exposed to dynamics of competition and devaluation of success, 53% to a “protective” form of control that limits initiative and autonomy, and 32% to explicit forms of financial hostility. Such behaviors are often justified as prudence or care, but in fact, they hinder financial independence.
The third is financial exploitation, through which the perpetrator uses the victim’s resources and labor for their own benefit, appropriating money and assets or imposing excessive workloads. Sixty percent of women have partners who use financial strength as a tool to affirm their masculinity; 47% experience the idea that “whoever earns more decides.” In these cases, money becomes social recognition and an identity lever, rather than a simple means of exchange.
The research then highlights two critical elements that amplify financial violence. The first is motherhood: women with children between the ages of 25 and 44 have a non-employment rate that is twice as high as that of women without children, although women who work are significantly more satisfied with their lives and families than those who do not work. If they leave the labor market following motherhood, women incur an average loss of 34,000 euros per year, in addition to a depreciation of skills that, in a dynamic environment such as the current one, requires upskilling and reskilling interventions.
The second is the gender gap in financial education and awareness, an endemic and cross-cutting phenomenon that does not depend on the level of education. Women invest much less than men: men invest to obtain a return, while women take care of current expenses. With the major difference that, in the event of disputes, investments are registered in individual names, while current expenses are neither registered nor easily traceable. Women with a joint account invest in stocks twice as much as those with an account only in their own name, a sign that financial competence is often delegated or incomplete. Those who work, finally, are more oriented toward saving (12% more) than men who work: even under equal conditions, they keep liquid funds in their accounts instead of investing them, indicating that this saving is seen as a safety net against potential failures linked to the risk component of men’s financial investments.
What to invest in
Financial violence affects female employment, career continuity, skill loss, and ultimately productivity. For companies, investing in post-maternity return policies, flexibility, reskilling, and financial education is both an ethical choice and an financial lever.
The data suggest the urgency of strengthening work–life balance policies and promoting financial literacy as a basic social infrastructure. Financial violence, the research emphasizes, is an indicator of a country’s democratic quality: it concerns everyone and spares no one.
Finally, from an academic perspective, the study opens up new research avenues. The SDA Bocconi team points to the need to expand the analysis at an international and comparative level, to understand how these dynamics are reproduced in different contexts.
