/ 22 September 2014

Violence against women badly hurts SA’s economy

Violence Against Women Badly Hurts Sa's Economy

Gender-based violence (GBV) costs the South African economy a staggering R28.4-billion to R42.2-billion a year.

This is according to a new KPMG report,  “Too Costly to Ignore – the Economic Impact of Gender-Based Violence in South Africa”.

The report says the cost could be as much as 0.9% to 1.3% of South Africa’s annual gross domestic product (GDP).

The research was conducted by the human and social services division of KPMG, one of the global “big four” accounting firms.

Based on a prevalence rate of 20% – an assumption that one in five women experience an incident of gender-based violence each year – it puts the cost to the country at at least R28.4-billion a year.

This, the report notes, is enough to either provide wage subsidies for 100% of unemployed youth, build half a million RDP houses, or provide national healthcare to a quarter of the South African population.

“All sectors should be interested in that figure, specifically government, where a lot of decisions in treasury are made on cost-benefit types of analysis,” says Laura Brooks, finance and risk consultant at KPMG .

Numbers highlight the problem
According to Brooks, GBV is often overlooked by employers or considered to be a private matter.

“We aren’t always able to put a number to human suffering, and it is controversial to do so. But this [figure] puts gender-based violence in a language that people can understand – if we can try put a number to it, it at least draws attention to it.”

The study included women aged 15 and older and is based on 2012 cost data. Prevalence rates were based on experiences of violence over 12 months, not over the course of lifetime.

For the purposes of the study, the physical, sexual, psychological and/or economic violence, sometimes resulting in death, had to have been perpetrated by an intimate partner.

The research found the cost of the violence was R25.2-billion a year for victims (an average cost of R6 500 a victim). These included costs such as transport, phone calls, services, loss of earnings and the cost of morbidity and mortality.

Lost productivity and absenteeism
The cost to government of R513-million a year is the least. It includes expenses associated with preventative programmes, medical and aftercare services as well as police and judicial services.

“The cost to victims makes up the majority of this cost, representing almost 90% of the total amount,” the report says “In contrast, the cost to government represents less than 2% of the total cost.”

The cost to civil society is R886-million a year and business also loses an estimated R1.8-billion a year in lost productivity and absenteeism.

There is still so little data
The challenge of finding adequate data was a particular challenge for the research team.

“We started off looking for data and soon realised there is so little data that speaks specifically to this issue – police data is not sufficiently disaggregated to calculate levels of prevalence of gender-based violence,” says Brooks. “There are also such high rates of under-reporting, so there really isn’t a starting point of prevalence figure.”

The closest KPMG came to a reliable prevalence rate was a 2010 report produced by Gender Links and the Medical Research Council, which found the rate of GBV in Gauteng was 18.3%.

“So we started with 20% and ran some scenarios but our prevalence rates are exploratory,” says Brooks. “It’s likely gender-based violence costs at least 1% of GDP and probably much more.”

More than 30 studies worldwide, mostly from developed countries, have attempted to quantify the costs of various forms of violence against women.

Some of the most comprehensive studies, in developed and developing countries, KPMG says, estimate the cost of violence to be between 1% and 2% of GDP, and these are widely accepted to be underestimates, given the conservatism of the methodology and the gross under-reporting of violence.

“We understand there are big gaps in the data and that makes it so easy to shy away for the task – that is also why we have so little data,” Brooks says.

The report, however, aims to create a foothold to inspire other research, and ultimate action, she adds.