Economic abuse is well established as a widespread and damaging element of intimate partner violence. However research largely addresses cohabiting couples, with few detailed explorations of women’s longer-term experiences after separation. Further, researchers have not developed a gendered analysis of child support related economic abuse. Such an analysis requires understanding gender as a framework that organises institutions and relationships in ways that build and reproduce hierarchical relations of difference. In this paper, I present data from in-depth interviews with 37 single mothers to pursue a structural analysis of how men’s deliberate withholding of child support (termed child maintenance in some countries) can be a form of economic abuse that is facilitated through gendered state processes and institutions that order child support transfers. I argue that masculine financial discretion structures policy and organizational practices in ways that legitimate men’s financial agency at the expense of women’s financial autonomy. On-going compliance issues are not the result of a failure of Australia’s Child Support Program, but suggest that the state’s role can be one of regulation, not prevention, of economic abuse. Thus, Australia’s Child Support Program normalises the potential for post-separation economic abuse.

中文翻译：

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国家助长经济虐待：男性故意拒绝抚养子女的结构分析

经济虐待已成为亲密伴侣暴力的普遍且具有破坏性的因素。然而，研究主要针对同居夫妇，很少详细探讨女性分居后的长期经历。此外，研究人员尚未对与儿童抚养费相关的经济虐待进行性别分析。这种分析需要将性别理解为一个框架，该框架以建立和复制差异的等级关系的方式组织机构和关系。在本文中，我提供了对 37 位单身母亲进行深入访谈的数据，以对男性故意扣留子女抚养费（在某些国家称为子女抚养费）如何成为一种经济虐待形式进行结构分析，而这种经济虐待是通过性别化的国家程序和机构促进的订购子女抚养费转移。我认为，男性财务自由裁量权以牺牲女性财务自主权为代价使男性的财务机构合法化的方式来构建政策和组织实践。持续的合规问题并不是澳大利亚儿童抚养计划失败的结果，而是表明该州的作用可以是监管，而不是预防经济虐待。因此，澳大利亚的儿童抚养计划使分居后经济虐待的可能性正常化。我认为，男性财务自由裁量权以牺牲女性财务自主权为代价使男性的财务机构合法化的方式来构建政策和组织实践。持续的合规问题并不是澳大利亚儿童抚养计划失败的结果，而是表明该州的作用可以是监管，而不是预防经济虐待。因此，澳大利亚的儿童抚养计划使分居后经济虐待的可能性正常化。我认为，男性财务自由裁量权以牺牲女性财务自主权为代价使男性的财务机构合法化的方式构建了政策和组织实践。持续的合规问题并不是澳大利亚儿童抚养计划失败的结果，而是表明该州的作用可以是监管，而不是预防经济虐待。因此，澳大利亚的儿童抚养计划使分居后经济虐待的可能性正常化。