Domestic violence costs Estonia more than a quarter of a billion euros a year
A report by Estonia's Praxis-style development monitoring body, the Development Monitoring Centre, estimates that intimate-partner and domestic violence costs Estonian society about €273 million a year. Most of the cost comes from harm to victims' health and economic losses.
Violence in close relationships, including domestic violence, costs Estonian society roughly €273 million a year, according to a report by the Development Monitoring Centre in Estonia. The centre stresses that this is more of a conservative estimate. The largest costs stem from physical and moral harm to victims, health care and economic losses.
Centre expert Kaupo Koppel said the economic costs of cases registered by police reach €94 million a year, but the real cost to society is estimated to be three times higher. Various surveys of victims suggest that about 80% of cases of violence in close relationships go unnoticed by the state, yet they still carry real costs because they affect victims' quality of life, health and ability to work. Spending by institutions that directly deal with the consequences of such violence is therefore only a small part of the total.
Breakdown of costs
The biggest share is the physical and moral harm done to victims. For registered cases its monetary equivalent is put at €34 million a year. Since registered cases make up only a fifth of all incidents, the estimated harm to society reaches €122 million a year.
Health care is the next-largest item. Last year, costs linked to registered cases in Estonia came to €13.6 million, but when hidden violence is included, the real cost may reach €59 million a year. Of that, €49 million is treatment, €5 million is sick-leave compensation, €3 million is medication and about €1 million is ambulance services.
Losses to the labour market and economy from registered incidents reach €15 million a year, rising to €38 million when hidden violence is counted. A further €3.6 million a year or so is spent on institutions and services dealing directly with the problem, such as victim support, support centres and violence prevention.
Among state bodies, the heaviest financial burden last year fell on the Health Insurance Fund (€13.6 million) and the Social Insurance Board with its subordinate agencies (€11.8 million).
Recommendations
The centre says that to reduce the economic damage, more attention should go to detecting such cases early and preventing repeat violence. Koppel stressed that if violence is noticed sooner and its recurrence prevented, people will be spared suffering, and costs in health care, the social system and the labour market will fall.
