The Healing Journey: Intimate Partner Abuse and Its Implications in the Labour Market (Book Review)

Abstract

Few studies have focused on women's workforce experiences during and after they leave an abuser. What are the impacts of abuse on women's work, productivity, careers, and aspirations? How does trauma effect their earnings, education, and training opportunities? Linda DeRiviere (2014) tackles these questions and concludes that work precarity, poverty and intimate partner abuse are interconnecting and reinforcing. The Healing Journey demonstrates that "intimate partner violence influences women's location in the labour market over their entire working life," while abuse and control can curb women's independence and career advancements long after a separation (p. 16). Women who have experienced abuse are less desirable for employers, argues DeRiviere, and the persistence of mental health and chronic illness directly related to abuse frequently disrupts women's ability to stay employed as well as pursue training and education.Coordinated by the family violence research centre, RESOLVE, DeRiviere's tri-provincial survey of the prairie provinces collected data in a seven-wave longitudinal study. Results are based on surveys of 414 women who have experienced domestic violence. In addition to statistical analysis, DeRiviere conducted interviews after each wave of the study. DeRiviere hopes her contribution will encourage policy changes that would provide women access to various supports to participate successfully in paid work, including transportation, adequate and stable housing near employment