People who experienced emotional abuse from a partner

3.3 People have equal, healthy, and respectful relationships.

Decreased prevalence of emotionally abusive and controlling behaviours in relationships.

Proportion of people who experienced emotional abuse from their partner in the last 12 months.

A decrease in the prevalence of emotional abuse indicates that people are choosing to use less, or no, emotionally abusive and controlling behaviours in relationships.

This measure captures one aspect of violence in relationships and should be considered alongside data on other forms of violence and abuse, as well as data on other aspects of relationships.

2021–22

Number of people who experienced emotional abuse from their cohabiting partners in the last 12 months.

Data element: Person—experienced emotional abuse
Data source: ABS PSS
Data source type: Survey

Number of people aged 18 years and over.

Data element : Person
Data source: ABS PSS
Data source type: Survey

This measure is the number of people who experienced emotional abuse in the last 12 months expressed as a percentage of 18 years and over in Australia.

100 × (Numerator/Denominator)

For each reference period, nationally, by: 

• sex 
• age (for younger women and older women)
• disability status.

For disaggregated data, the reference period will be extended to 2 years where required to allow for more reliable reporting. 

Statistics will not be reported if they have a high relative standard error and are considered too unreliable to measure changes over time.
Emotional abuse occurs when a person is subjected to certain behaviours or actions that are aimed at preventing or controlling their behaviour, causing them emotional harm or fear. These behaviours are characterised in nature by their intent to manipulate, control, isolate or intimidate the person they are aimed at. They are generally repeated behaviours and include psychological, social, economic and verbal abuse.
In the PSS, a person was considered to have experienced emotional abuse if they reported they had been subjected to or experienced one or more of the following behaviours (that were repeated with the intent to prevent or control their behaviour and were intended to cause them emotional harm or fear):

• Controlled or tried to control them from contacting family, friends or community
• Controlled or tried to control them from using the telephone, internet or family car
• Controlled or tried to control where they went or who they saw
• Kept track of where they were and who they were with (e.g. constant phone calls, GPS tracking, monitoring through social media)
• Controlled or tried to control them from knowing, accessing or deciding about household money
• Controlled or tried to control them from working or earning money
• Controlled or tried to control their income or assets
• Controlled or tried to control them from studying
• Deprived them of basic needs such as food, shelter, sleep or assistive aids
• Damaged, destroyed or stole any of their property
• Constantly insulted them to make them feel ashamed, belittled or humiliated (e.g. put-downs)
• Shouted, yelled or verbally abused them to intimidate them
• Lied to their child/ren with the intent of turning their children against them
• Lied to other family members or friends with the intent of turning them against them
• Threatened to take their child/ren away from them
• Threatened to harm their child/ren
• Threatened to harm their other family members or friends
• Threatened to harm any of their pets
• Harmed any of their pets
• Threatened or attempted suicide. 

In the PSS, partner refers to someone the person lives with, or lived with at some point, in a married or de facto relationship. This may also be described as a co-habiting partner.

While the data is comparable across the time series, the list of emotional abuse behaviours asked about in the survey has expanded over time.
For some population groups, numbers may be too small to be reported on separately.
State and territory data in 2021–22 are only available for women. 
Where the RSE for numbers and estimates is between 25% and 50%, this will be indicated in the data visualisation and any accompanying data tables. Where the RSE is greater than 50%, the data will not be published.