CANBERRA, June 3 (Xinhua) -- More than one-third of Australian men have used intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime, a landmark government report has found.
The report, which was published by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) on Tuesday, found that 35 percent of Australian men aged 18-65 had used IPV as of 2022, up from 24 percent in 2014.
The data was collected by the AIFS Longitudinal Study on Male Health, which has tracked a group of 16,000 males since 2013. An additional 10,000 males were added to the study in 2024-25.
The participants in the study, which is the largest of its kind in the world, are asked about issues such as gambling, mental health, family violence, alcohol and drug use and social connection.
According to Tuesday's report, an estimated 120,000 Australian men start using IPV for the first time each year.
The World Health Organization defines IPV as behavior within an intimate relationship that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm.
Emotional-type abuse was found by the AIFS to be the most common form of IPV in Australia, with 32 percent of study participants reporting in 2022 that they had ever made a partner feel frightened or anxious. Nine percent reported ever physically abusing a partner.
The study found that men who felt strongly that they had a quality relationship with a father or father figure during childhood were 48 percent less likely to report ever having used IPV and those with high levels of social support all the time were 26 percent less likely to report using IPV.
Men with moderate or severe depressive symptoms were 62 percent more likely to have used IPV as of 2022 than men without any depressive symptoms.
Sean Martin, program lead of the study, said that the data provides a first set of risk factors to help develop effective policies for young Australian men.
"Depressive symptoms and a lack of social connection aren't an excuse by any means, as violence is always a choice, but they do signal where we could be building more supports around men early on, for the sake of their future partners, children and communities," he said in a statement.
The federal Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek said that the findings were concerning but "not surprising" and that it is critical to identify factors that lead to violence in order to fund intervention and prevention programs. ■
