National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey (NCAS)

First year: 2009

Latest year: 2017

Frequency: Every 4 years (2009, 2013, 2017)

Year in this publication: 2017

Sample size: 17, 542

Methodology: Telephone survey

Geography: National

Purpose/description

The overall aim of the NCAS project is to develop and extend the evidence and knowledge base required to foster community attitudes that support women to live free from exposure to violence, including threats of or fear of violence.

Scope and coverage

The 2017 NCAS comprised a 20-minute national telephone survey of 17,542 persons aged 16 and over. The survey used a dual-frame sample design such that approximately half of the respondents were interviewed via randomly generated landline telephone numbers and approximately half were interviewed via randomly generated mobile phone numbers. This dual-frame design enabled the mobile phone-only population (that is, those without a residential landline telephone connection but nonetheless contactable via their mobile phone) to be included in the sample.

FDSV definitions

This report adopts the definition of violence against women that is presented in the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (1993) as ‘any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life’. The term ‘violence against women’ is inclusive of the range of forms of violence experienced by women. Violence against women includes men’s physical and sexual violence against women in intimate relationships and families, but also encompasses other forms of violence perpetrated in other settings or circumstances. The survey focuses on community attitudes towards interpersonal forms of gender-based violence as they affect women including:

  • partner violence, also referred to as domestic violence in the survey and family violence or relationship violence in some other contexts
  • sexual assault, sometimes referred to as rape in the survey
  • sexual harassment
  • stalking

For more information, visit National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey