Large new study finds almost half of Australians who have experienced intimate partner violence are male
A new study just published in the Medical Journal of Australia surveyed 8503 people aged 16 years or older, of whom 7022 had been in intimate relationships. The prevalence of intimate partner violence in Australia - a national survey, had the aim of estimating the prevalence in Australia of intimate partner violence, each intimate partner violence type, and multitype intimate partner violence, overall and by gender, age group, and sexual orientation.
When it looked at the lifetime experience of any intimate partner violence among the 6934 women and men respondents with intimate partners at any time since age 16 years, it found that 45.5% of people who had experienced violence were male. That’s almost half - much higher than the one in three figure consistently found in the ABS Personal Safety Survey for many years now.
When it came to physical intimate partner violence, men made up 44% of the men and women who had experienced it. Similar figures were found for psychological violence, with 44.8% being men. Men made up a smaller percentage (18%) of those men and women who had experienced sexual violence, but in the 16-24 year age group, one quarter (24.8%) were men.
Men were about as likely as women to be victims of many types of intimate partner violence. For example:
Hit you with a fist or object, or kick or bite you (50.4% of persons who had experienced this were men)
Harass you by phone, text, email or social media (44.8% of persons who had experienced this were men)
Try to convince your family, children or friends that you were crazy, or try to turn them against you (44.6% of persons who had experienced this were men)
Keep you from seeing or talking to your family or friends (43.7% of persons who had experienced this were men)
Use or threaten to use a knife, gun or other weapon to harm you (42.6% of persons who had experienced this were men)
Tell you that you were crazy, stupid or not good enough (42.4% of persons who had experienced this were men).
The study also looked at whether respondents had experienced just one type of intimate partner violence, or more than one type. When it came to multitype intimate partner violence, men made up 40.2% of those men and women who had experienced it. They made up 49.6% of those who had experienced two types of intimate partner violence. When it came to those men and women who had experienced all three types of violence (physical, sexual and psychological), men made up a smaller proportion overall (17.6%), however once again in the 16-24 year age group, over a quarter (26.2%) were male.
Regretfully, the authors adopted the widespread approach found across the domestic violence sector and within government, of excusing women’s intimate partner violence towards men (saying it could have been retaliatory or defensive) and downplaying it (saying it is more likely to be “situational couple violence” than “intimate terrorism”). None of these claims were supported by the actual data of the study, and have been repeatedly debunked in multiple other studies.
The authors also downplayed women’s violence towards men by saying it can be less severe than violence inflicted by men. This is certainly true on average, due to men’s average size and strength advantage over women, and had some supportive evidence from the survey data itself. However men made up more than half of the men and women who had experienced being assaulted by a fist or object and close to half of those who had been assaulted with a knife or weapon, so it’s certainly the case that many men experienced severe violence even if less did so on average. It’s also the case that many non-physical forms of intimate partner violence (e.g. withholding access to children) can be more harmful to people over the long term than physical assaults.
The study can be found at https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2025/222/8/prevalence-intimate-partner-violence-australia-national-survey.
Those wishing to download a PDF copy of the study can do so from here.