Page 168 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 1

IPS129 Rivera-Galicia, L.F. et al.

The costs of gender-based violence against
women in Spain
Rivera-Galicia, L.F. 1,3,4 , Gallo-Rivera, M.T. 2,3,4 ;
Mañas-Alcón, E. 2,3,4 , Montes-Pineda, O. 2,3,4
1 Department of Economics. University of Alcalá. Spain.
2 Department of Economics and Business. University of Alcalá. Spain.
3 Institute for Economic and Social Analysis (IAES). University of Alcalá. Spain
4 Chair of Corporate Social Responsibility. University of Alcalá. Spain

Abstract
Violence against women (VAW) is one of the most severe forms of gender
inequality. In 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that one
out of three women in the world has experienced physical and/or sexual
violence throughout life. VAW causes thousands of deaths every year, and
millions of victims who experience suffering and pain. Moreover, it has also
significant economic costs in terms of expenditures on service provision and
healthcare, lost income for women and their families, work absenteeism of
victims and aggressors, police and legal costs, etc. This paper aims to estimate
the global costs of VAW caused by intimate partner violence (IPV) in Spain
during 2016. First, it starts describing the methodological aspects needed for
the estimation of costs. Second, we depict the data on victims from the 2015
Spanish Macro survey of gender-based violence. Third, we classify the diverse
impacts of IPV against women in three cost-assessment categories:
employment, healthcare and legal sector. Finally, we estimate the tangible
costs for each one of these categories, as well as for other concepts such as
accommodation needs or other activities of third sector organizations. The
main findings of this paper are that 2.7% of women aged 16 or more have
suffered from physical and/or sexual violence from their intimate partners in
Spain. However, this percentage increases up to 13.2% if we consider other types
of intimate partner violence. Using the accounting model and different
approaches for every category, we estimate the total tangible cost of VAW in
Spain in 2016 between 1,281.0 and 8,540.9 million €, which represent between
0.11% and 0.76% of Spanish GDP.

Keywords
Gender-based violence; Intimate partner violence; Economic cost; Spain

1. Introduction
In 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that one out of
three women in the world has experienced physical and/or sexual violence
throughout life. VAW causes thousands of deaths every year, and millions of

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