Economic abuse : A qualitative study on social workers' methods for identifying and handling economic abuse against women in intimate relationships.

In this study, we highlight the social issue of economic abuse. Domestic violence consists of several different forms of violence such as physical, psychological, economic, material, and sexual violence. Economic abuse affects the ability of victims to leave an abusive relationship. Economic abuse is a form of violence that often occurs where other types of violence are present. The issue is that economic abuse is not as widely recognized as other forms of violence, which is what this study delves into. The purpose of the study is to examine the methods used by social services to identify and address economic abuse. It explores the available assessment tools, the interventions in place, and how economic violence is recognized. The study investigates how the scope of action for social workers is shaped, as well as the influence of traditional gender roles in society on how victims perceive economic violence. We conducted a qualitative study in which we interviewed eight different social workers from eight different municipalities. We analyzed the results using qualitative analysis and identified the following themes: municipal organization, assessment tools, traditional gender norms, interventions, individual needs, discretion and areas for improvement. We used Michael Lipskys theory about street-level bureaucrats in our analysis of the results. The result we found is that social workers do not have any specific methods directly related to cases where a person is only exposed to economic abuse. Instead, the social workers need to use their discretion to address the needs of individuals who are victims of economic abuse because investigations and identification of all forms of domestic violence are always included in the assessments.