Rape as an Economic Crime

Abstract

This article examines how isolated instances of sexual violence affect adult female survivors’ employment and economic well-being. This study draws on data from 27 in-depth, qualitative interviews with sexual assault survivors and rape crisis service providers. The findings suggest that sexual assault and the related trauma response can disrupt survivors’ employment in several ways, including time off, diminished performance, job loss, and inability to work. By disrupting income or reducing earning power, all of these employment consequences have implications for survivors’ economic well-being in the months or years following the assault. In addition, I argue that for many survivors, these employment consequences compound one another and ultimately shift survivors’ long-term economic trajectories. By highlighting survivors’ lived experiences of the financial aftermath of sexual assault, these findings help to illuminate the processes by which sexual violence decreases survivors’ income over the life course. Understanding the financial effects of sexual violence can help researchers better understand and predict the recovery process, while helping practitioners to design more effective interventions for survivors.

Keywords

sexual assault rape economic well-being sexual assault and employment recovery from sexual violence

Lee, a 24-year-old designer, was walking near her workplace when a stranger attacked her and raped her. Beset by panic every time she walked alone to or from work, Lee was forced to quit her job and move to a different state to live with a family member. In addition to losing her entire income, Lee also accumulated debt because she had to continue paying rent on her former apartment for several months. The only work Lee could find in her new city paid the minimum wage, less than two thirds of her former income. Even three decades later, Lee had never regained her prior level of earnings. Lee’s story illustrates how sexual violence can jeopardize survivors’ employment and earnings, a theme that has not been thoroughly explored in the literature. Although several quantitative studies have shown that sexual violence creates costs and may affect survivors’ work and wages (Byrne, Resnick, Kilpatrick, Best, & Saunders, 1999; Macmillan & Hagan, 2004; Miller, Cohen, & Weirsema, 1996), qualitative research on the economic dimensions of rape is rare. For this reason, little is known about how survivors experience the financial aftermath of sexual violence. This study begins to address this gap in the literature by using qualitative interview methods to explore how sexual assault affects adult survivors’ employment and economic well-being.

A substantial body of research has shown that intimate partner violence (IPV), which may include physical violence, sexual assault, or both, has detrimental effects on survivors’ employment and economic well-being (e.g., Adams, Tolman, Bybee, Sullivan, & Kennedy, 2012; Swanberg, Logan, & Macke, 2005). Frameworks for understanding the economic impact of IPV tend to focus on abusers’ repeated use of violent and controlling tactics over a period of time, which interfere with survivors’ work. Less attention has been paid to how isolated violent incidents, such as acquaintance rapes, affect survivors’ employment and economic stability. For this reason, the present study focuses on isolated sexual violence, which is defined here as rape or sexual assault that is not part of a pattern of abuse by an intimate partner. This includes any sexual violence committed by non-intimate partners (e.g., acquaintances or strangers), as well as violence by intimates that was not part of a pattern of abuse (e.g., a single rape by an otherwise nonviolent romantic partner). Regardless of the perpetrator, survivors of isolated sexual violence share in common the experience of a single, traumatic event, whose economic implications may not fit into prevailing frameworks for IPV and employment.

Findings from the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) suggest that isolated sexual violence is common. First, a substantial portion of female rape survivors were raped by a person who was not a current or former intimate partner. For instance, 40.8% had been raped by an acquaintance and 13.8% by a stranger (Black et al., 2011). The numbers are also high for non-rape sexual violence: 42.1% had been victimized by an acquaintance and 44.8% by a stranger. In their examination of rape by intimate partners, Black and colleagues (2011) do not provide complete data on whether sexual violence was part of a pattern of abuse.¹ However, using the present study’s definition, the prevalence of isolated sexual violence would be even higher than the numbers presented above, as it would also include any sexual violence by intimate partners that was not part of a pattern of abuse (e.g., an isolated rape by a boyfriend). Sexual violence can take many forms, including rape, attempted rape, and unwanted sexual contact (Black et al., 2011). In this article, the terms sexual violence and sexual assault are used interchangeably to refer to this inclusive definition of rape and other sexually violent experiences.

Literature Review: Economic Impacts of Sexual Violence

Researchers have found that sexual assault creates high financial costs for survivors and society at large. For example, survivors of rape by an intimate partner accrue an average of US$1,494 in medical and mental health expenses; of these, survivors are ultimately responsible for at least 25% of medical and 33% of mental health costs (Chrisler & Ferguson, 2006). Chrisler and Ferguson (2006) also found that survivors of rape by an intimate partner lose an average of US$69 per day as a result of unpaid time off from work. Although their study focuses on IPV, its findings are suggestive of the types of financial costs that survivors of isolated sexual violence may face as well. In a national study on the costs of criminal victimization, Miller et al. (1996) estimated that each sexual assault (excluding child abuse) costs US$5,100 in tangible losses (lost productivity, medical and mental health care, police/fire services, and property damage). To this they add US$81,400 in lost quality of life (based on jury awards for pain and suffering), arriving at an estimate of US$87,000 per victimization in 1993 dollars (US$143,205 in 2014 dollars; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014; see also Miller, Taylor, & Sheppard, 2007; Post, Mezey, Maxwell, & Wibert, 2002, for state-level estimates). Although the authors acknowledge that these expenses can be borne by crime victims, their families, taxpayers, or perpetrators, they do not specify what share is paid by each segment of society. Importantly, this means that their estimates cannot speak to the impact of sexual assault on survivors’ economic well-being.

Sexual violence is also associated with numerous negative mental health outcomes, which may affect survivors’ employment and earnings. Rape survivors experience high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Breslau, Wilcox, Storr, Lucia, & Anthony, 2004; Perkonigg, Kessler, Storz, & Wittchen, 2000; Rothbaum, Foa, Riggs, Murdock, & Walsh, 1992), depression, anxiety, withdrawal (Burnam et al., 1988; Elliott, Mok, & Briere, 2004; Kimerling & Calhoun, 1994), and substance abuse (Acierno, Resnick, Flood, & Holmes, 2003; Kilpatrick, Acierno, Resnick, Saunders, & Best, 1997; Kilpatrick, Resnick, Saunders, & Best, 1998). These health consequences may affect survivors economically in several ways. First, mental health symptoms can interfere with survivors’ performance at work, as well as their ability to secure and maintain employment. For instance, research suggests that combat-related PTSD is associated with lower employment rates and earnings (Smith, Schnurr, & Rosenheck, 2005); similar outcomes may be expected for those with rape-related PTSD. Second, the symptoms may likewise disrupt survivors’ educational performance and attainment, affecting their future earnings. Third, post-assault treatments, such as medications, doctors’ visits, and counseling, can be costly, as noted above.

In addition to these health consequences, there is evidence that many survivors of sexual violence require time off from work and experience job loss. For instance, 19% of adult female rape victims in the National Violence Against Women Survey reported losing time at work as a result of the assault (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2006). Sexual violence may also disrupt survivors’ employment. Byrne et al. (1999) found that women who experienced recent sexual or physical violence were more than twice as likely to be unemployed than women who experienced no such assault. This effect was particularly strong for women who were unemployed initially and those who had experienced prior violence. Although Byrne and colleagues did not distinguish between sexual and physical violence, their finding suggests that sexual violence may affect survivors’ employment.

Research findings also suggest that sexual assault can diminish long-term earnings. For instance, MacMillan (2000) uses a life-course perspective, arguing that violent victimization during adolescence disrupts survivors’ educational and occupational attainment, leading to lower earnings in adulthood. In his study, young adults who had experienced any form of violence in adolescence had lower earnings than their peers. MacMillan found that sexual assault was associated with significantly lower annual earnings (by US$3,150) in a Canadian sample, but he did not find a parallel effect in a U.S. sample. (See also Loya, 2012, for long-term earnings effects of sexual assault.) Importantly, MacMillan (2000) suggests that violence “set[s] in motion a sequence of events or experiences that give shape to the life course,” resulting in lower earnings (p. 559). Yet, quantitative data are limited in their ability to capture such changes in life events.

The present study’s qualitative approach allows for a more detailed examination of how sexual assault affects survivors’ lived experiences of employment and economic well-being. Building on MacMillan’s (2000) life-course perspective, I consider how assault-related employment changes trigger other stressful life events to affect survivors’ long-term economic trajectories. These findings can help to illuminate the processes by which sexual assault decreases survivors’ income over the life course.

Method

Participants

This analysis uses data from 27 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with rape crisis service providers and adult, female sexual assault survivors. Interviews with 18 service providers made up the primary sample, and 9 survivors were interviewed for triangulation. Service providers and survivors each offer distinct and valuable perspectives on the research question. First, through their work with survivors, rape crisis service providers accrue a wealth of knowledge about survivors’ experiences during recovery, including economic challenges. Notably, service providers can speak to patterns they have observed among the many survivors they have served over time. Second, sexual assault survivors can offer information about the economic impact of sexual violence in their own lives.

I used a purposive sampling technique to recruit service provider participants in two metropolitan areas in a northeastern state. The goal was to interview providers who held a range of positions in the rape crisis service network so that the data would reflect the experiences of survivors who enter the service system at different points, seeking a variety of services. I recruited providers who had worked with survivors of isolated sexual assault and who indicated that they had direct knowledge of the economic dimension of this sexual violence for their clients. Rape crisis agencies were identified through referrals from the Department of Public Health and the state’s largest rape crisis center. I interviewed 18 service providers from seven agencies, as noted in Table 1. Within each agency, I interviewed a director plus one to three providers from each department or specialty, depending on the size of the staff. To capture the diversity of services, agencies offering more services are more heavily represented in the sample. The providers held various positions at their agencies, including lawyers (5), counselors (5), advocates (3), administrators (3), and those who had both administrative and counseling responsibilities (2). Providers had an average of 10.5 years of experience in the rape crisis field, with a range of 16 months to 20 years.

Table 1.

Sample Characteristics (N = 27).

Total Sample	Providers	Survivors	Total
Race/ethnicity
Black or African American	1	1	2
Non-Hispanic White	15	5	22
Asian or Pacific Islander	1	0	1
Hispanic or Latina (any race)	1	3	4
Total	18	9	27
Providers	Agencies		Participants
Agency type
Rape crisis center	2		10
Law center	1		4
Hospital/community health center	2		2
University victim services	2		2
Survivors	n
Employment status
Employed	4
Not working by choice	2
Involuntarily unemployed	2
Disabled	1
Current household income
US$0-US$15,000	1
US$15,001-US$30,000	2
US$45,001-US$60,000	2
US$90,001-US$105,000	2
US$105,000+	2
Perpetrator’s relationship with the survivor^a
Friend or acquaintance	7
Current or former spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or date	4
Family member	1
Stranger	5
No. and timing of sexual assaults (since age 12)	Minimum	Maximum	M
Age at first sexual assault	14	23	20
Age at the most recent sexual assault	18	32	24
Years since the most recent sexual assault	2	31	17
No. of times assaulted in lifetime	1	12	4

These numbers exceed the survivor sample size (9) because some survivors were assaulted by more than one perpetrator.

A convenience sampling technique was used to recruit survivor participants. The state Department of Public Health and participating agencies’ staff and volunteers disseminated the email announcements to their networks. Flyers were also posted at local social service agencies, college campuses, and a women’s community center. The intent of this sampling method was to collect rich data on a small number of diverse survivors. Survivor participants were women aged 18 or older who identified as survivors of an isolated sexual assault, using the study’s definition: “Rape, attempted rape, or other unwanted sexual contact or threats since the age of 12, which is not part of a pattern of abuse.” The study was limited to participants who had experienced sexual violence since age 12 based on the criteria used by the state’s largest rape crisis center, which refers survivors younger than 12 to a child-specific service provider. At least 1 year must have passed since the most recent sexual assault, and there was no upper limit on time since the most recent assault. McGuffey (2013) suggests that survivors of sexual assaults that occurred even decades before have strong memories of the incidents and can offer valuable insights into their experiences.

I conducted interviews with 10 survivors, but one was excluded from the final sample because she viewed her rape as part of a pattern of abuse by an intimate partner. Of the 9 remaining survivors, 8 reported experiencing at least one rape, whereas the 9th only experienced non-rape sexual assault. Many survivor participants had experienced more than one instance of sexual violence at the hands of different perpetrators. As indicated in Table 1, the survivors knew the perpetrators in the majority of violent incidents, and about half (5) had been assaulted by strangers. Survivors ranged in age from 22 to 54, with a mean age of 41. The survivors were fairly racially diverse, with 3 Latina, 1 Black, and 5 non-Hispanic white participants. Of the 9 survivors, 6 were employed or intentionally not working at the time of the interview, whereas 3 were involuntarily unemployed or unable to work due to disability. Survivors’ current household incomes ranged from less than US$15,000 to over US$105,000, and their mean household size was 2.4 people. All survivors’ names and identifying details have been changed to protect their identities.

Data Collection and Analysis

I conducted all interviews in person at a location of the participant’s choice or by phone between January and July of 2011. The interview schedule, which was designed to assess economic impacts described in the related literature (Byrne et al., 1999; Macmillan, 2000; Miller et al., 1996; Post et al., 2002), was part of a larger study examining the economic impacts of sexual violence. It included questions about how sexual assault affected survivors’ employment and earnings, including hours, performance, pay, and effects on short- and long-term economic well-being. See the appendix for a more detailed description of the topics covered in the interviews. Service providers and survivors were asked questions about the same topics, with the exception of certain demographics and items on personal experiences with sexual violence. During the interviews, I reminded both providers and survivors of the study’s focus on isolated sexual violence. Although some providers worked with survivors of multiple kinds of violence (IPV, child sexual abuse, and isolated sexual assault), the interviews focused on the impact of sexual violence that was not part of a pattern of abuse. Likewise, though some survivors in the sample may have also experienced IPV or child sexual abuse, the interviews focused on the isolated sexual assault(s) each survivor had experienced since the age of 12. When survivors had experienced multiple isolated sexual assaults, I collected data about the specific economic outcomes for each sexual assault.

Using Atlas.ti software, I coded the data line by line using a method of open and focused coding, a form of thematic analysis that draws on both inductive and deductive inquiry (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995). After reading the transcripts and entering initial codes, I engaged in open thematic coding, creating codes based on both a priori expectations and ideas that emerged from participants’ stories. A priori codes included the assault’s impact on work, effects on earnings, and missing opportunities. Emergent codes included disability and homelessness as consequences of the assault. Next, I engaged in focused coding, noting similarities and differences within and between the two participant groups (survivors and providers) and refining themes. I used the same set of primary codes for survivors and providers, and there was a high degree of consistency between the groups’ responses.

Findings: Economic Consequences of Sexual Violence

In the interview data, I identify four major consequences of sexual assault for survivors’ employment: time off, decreased performance, job loss, and inability to work (see Table 2). In addition, I introduce the concept of major trajectory shifts, in which the employment consequences accumulate to permanently remove survivors from the occupational or earning paths they were on prior to being sexually assaulted. I also characterize moderate trajectory shifts, which are changes to survivors’ employment or economic stability from which they eventually recover.

Table 2.

Number of Participants Endorsing Key Work-Related Consequences.

	Providers	Survivors	Total
Work-Related Consequence	(n = 18)	(n = 9)	(N = 27)
Time off	15	7	22
Performance declines	13	4	17
Job loss
Terminated	10	1	11
Quit job	6	3	9
Long-term inability to work	9	4	13
Trajectory shift	11	8	19

First, a large majority of providers (15 of 18) reported that their clients often need to take time off from work to recover emotionally. For instance, a lawyer explained what she has seen among her clients: “Pre-assault, they never took a day for sickness. Post-assault they’re taking, you know, a day a week because of the PTSD, because of the anxiety, because of the trauma” (Provider 101). Providers identified several reasons for taking time off, including immediate recovery, medical or legal appointments during work hours, struggles with mental health symptoms, and fear of seeing the perpetrator at work. Seven of nine survivors reported taking time off to recover, and the amount of time they needed ranged from 1 week to more than 3 years. They most frequently reported needing time off to recover mentally or curb their fear, as well as time to manage the logistics of talking with police, moving residences, and other immediate needs. For instance, Jane, a survivor, explained that she took “a week to two weeks. And that was really just to, well, to recover mentally. But also really to move and figure out the logistics around that.”

Other survivors reported needing time off frequently in the years following the assault. For instance, Sally requested a month off to recover from a violent rape. When her employer refused, Sally quit her job and found work as a temporary secretary, earning just enough to meet her basic expenses. She explained how she built time off into her new schedule:

I would work with some doctor for a week, and then I could take a few days off, and then I would work somewhere else, and then I could stop, and then I’d work a month somewhere . . . But I felt like I at least had control that I could take a few days off here and there if I needed it, but I knew exactly how much money I needed to earn to live.

Sally continued in this way for 4 years, until she was able to handle full-time work again.

Although some survivors, like Sally, are able to build time off into their work schedules, for other survivors, unpaid leave is the only option. Providers explained that unpaid time off can jeopardize survivors’ employment and disrupt their income. For instance, an administrator explained how time off affects many of her clients who are low-wage and hourly workers:

They are in jobs where if they don’t show up, they don’t get paid. Maybe they can take two weeks off, but that means they’re not going to get paid those two weeks. So that pretty quickly affects someone’s ability to pay their rent and pay their utility bills and buy food and take care of their kids. And then that also affects them emotionally and their ability to continue to function. And I’ve seen a lot of clients in that position really sink into a depression, where even if they could go back to work, they weren’t in a position to go back to work. And unfortunately, I think those are the clients that are always in danger of becoming homeless and really just losing everything because they didn’t have that much to begin with. (Provider 107)

This quote illustrates the potential economic ripple effects of sexual assault; unpaid time off can set in motion numerous new challenges, ultimately affecting every part of the survivor’s life.

In addition to increased absenteeism, a second consequence of sexual assault is declining performance at work. The majority of providers (13 of 18) reported that survivors’ performance at work suffers, particularly immediately following the assault. For instance, an administrator described survivors in the wake of violence “showing up [to] work late or kind of disheveled sometimes. [Mentally] they’re not really there” (Provider 107). Similarly, a counselor explained,

While you’re post-traumatic, it does a number on your self-esteem. So you may be able to go to work every day, but you may not feel good about yourself at work. So it could be that it has an economic cost because you’re not being considered for advancement because you’re more depressed and disconnected at work and things like that. So even for people who are maintaining, it may be that they’re not excelling in a way that they might otherwise have done. (Provider 106)

Providers also noted that survivors face a tension between privacy and self-care, as they must disclose the assault to their employers to receive accommodation at work. When survivors choose not to disclose to their supervisors, this can mean foregoing employment protections and leaving the employer to interpret any performance changes. A legal advocate explained this: “Probably the biggest expense is when they don’t tell their employer why it is that they’re missing work or maybe haven’t maintained the same quality of work . . . I find that employers aren’t always as forgiving” (Provider 110). Another provider, an administrator, explained how employers may interpret the survivor’s decreased performance:

Particularly if they don’t know what’s going on because for whatever reasons, [the] student or the employee hasn’t wanted to come forward, they’re looked at very differently, and they’re not considered as competent anymore. Something’s going on with them. They’re not as responsible. So I do think that they lose out on a lot of opportunities. (Provider 107)

This illustrates how a survivor’s diminished job performance can cost her opportunities. This in turn can impact the survivor’s earning potential.

Two thirds of survivors (6 of 9) reported that their performance at work suffered due to sexual assault. Survivors reported that their work performance deteriorated primarily because they were unable to concentrate due to anxiety, PTSD, dissociation, or the perpetrator’s presence in the workplace. For instance, Lisa kept working after she was raped, but she said that she “wasn’t doing a very good job.” She described “sleepwalking” her way through work for a year and eventually quitting because one of her perpetrators worked for the same company. Another survivor, Juana, explained that dissociation interfered with her job as a salesperson: “Considering that one of the main points of my job was to up-sell things, if I’m not consciously there, then I can’t really make an up-sale. We were rated by our numbers.” For these survivors, performance issues lasted from a several weeks to years following the assault.

The third employment outcome identified in these data is job loss, including quitting or being terminated due to sexual assault or related trauma. Providers articulated several reasons why their clients lose their jobs, including quitting because they are struggling to function, being dismissed as retribution for reporting, and most commonly, being fired for poor performance or for taking too many days off. For instance, a counselor observed that her clients “lose their jobs more than they quit them,” but, she continued, “Some people go into such a state of depression, they’ll quit them. I’m going to say about 90% have employment difficulties” (Provider 117).

Providers also observed that the risk of job loss is particularly pronounced among their clients who are low-wage and hourly workers. For instance, a lawyer explained,

For those folks who don’t have any benefits, which is many, or who work at the, you know, Claire’s boutique at the mall, you know what I mean . . . if they take time off, they’re going to get fired. (Provider 100)

Another lawyer similarly described clients who are unable to take time off going back to work before fully recovering, only to end up losing their jobs:

They know that they aren’t going to make rent. They’re not going to get food. They have all these obligations, and so they rush back into a situation, only to not really be able to handle it. And [they] either make a mistake or have their performance suffer and get fired. (Provider 103)

As these examples illustrate, survivors’ pre-existing economic situations can shape their employment decisions and add to their risk of job loss.

Among survivors in the sample, one was terminated due to performance issues, and three quit their jobs soon after the assault, either because they were unable to secure time off or due to anxiety or other mental health symptoms. For instance, Lee, whose story was told in the introduction, was raped by a stranger while walking near her workplace 30 years ago. Lee explained that the resulting anxiety put an end to her lucrative career as a designer:

I couldn’t walk down the streets, because I’d hear the footsteps behind me. And that stayed with me for a couple of years. The certain cadence of footsteps would just trigger a panic . . . But I tried, and I just couldn’t go into work. And it was too bad, because it was a great union job, I was making wonderful money. Union benefits, I was actually working on shows that were [in a major theatre], you know, and it was just slam the door shut. I couldn’t do it.

Due to her anxiety, Lee quit her job. Unable to afford her apartment, she moved in with a family member in another state, where she only found minimum wage work. Over the next three decades, Lee never returned to her prior level of earnings or financial stability.

The final work-related consequence identified here is the long-term inability to work. Providers reported that their clients are unable to work following sexual assault for many reasons, including debilitating depression or anxiety, general trauma, substance abuse, injury, and fear of seeing the perpetrator. For instance, an advocate explained that she has seen many survivors who have “been so traumatized that they just can’t function well at work. There is fear, there is embarrassment, there is shame, there’s all these negative things that you can think of, that they can’t mentally go back to work.” For those cases, she explained, she refers clients to “long-term benefits, like disability” (Provider 105). The majority of providers similarly reported that their clients often turn to public benefit programs when they can no longer work.

Among survivors, mental health challenges were the most common long-term barriers to work. Four survivors were unable to work for several years as a result of the mental health impacts of sexual assault, including PTSD, anxiety, and dissociation. For instance, Lil’ Miss, a 51-year-old survivor, reported that rape permanently diminished her ability to work. Soon after being violently raped by a stranger, Lil’ Miss was fired from her well-paid job in law enforcement due to serious, PTSD-related performance issues. While unemployed, she developed a serious drug addiction (which she described as a way of “blocking the pain” from the rape) and went through bouts of homelessness. After 18 months of unemployment, Lil’ Miss began working but soon found that her PTSD and depression made it difficult for her to work. She described her experience this way:

Rape crippled me. It stopped me from producing. It stopped me from even wanting to produce, and producing, that I’m talking in terms of producing any kind of work. It’s almost as if I had a pity party every day for myself, and I deserved it, because it was a painful experience and everywhere I went for help, I couldn’t get it. I didn’t have insurance. I got fired. There’s no job now. There’s no insurance. “If you don’t have insurance, we can’t help you.”

Lil’ Miss’ story illustrates that the costs of job loss go beyond decreased income. After losing her health insurance along with her job, Lil’ Miss struggled to find affordable mental health care. She explained that without counseling and mental health treatment, recovery was difficult. Two other survivors also reported losing their insurance because they lost their jobs as a result of rape. In the wake of this disruption, Lil’ Miss reported that public programs, including Medicaid, Social Securitiy Disability Insurance (SSDI), and housing assistance allowed her to access mental health care and get on the road to recovery. In this way, her story also demonstrates the role that public assistance can play in helping to support survivors who cannot work due to sexual trauma.

Finally, sexual assault and its aftereffects can have a cumulative impact on some survivors’ economic well-being. Many respondents explicitly spoke about sexual assault affecting the course of a survivor’s life permanently or creating ripple effects that resonated for decades. I use the term trajectory shifts (a label drawn from the data) to describe cases in which sexual violence seemed to remove the survivor from the path she was on prior to the assault, including long-term changes in income, occupation, or economic stability. Most providers (11 of 18) reported seeing trajectory shifts among their clients. Of these, seven had witnessed major shifts, employment consequences that permanently changed survivors’ occupational or earning pathways, including long-term unemployment, career change, and permanent disability. A lawyer explained major trajectory shifts this way: “It really spirals. Like I’ve talked to clients, literally, who 20 years later after the assault . . . the trajectory of their life is so totally different than it was the 10 seconds before the rape happened” (Provider 100).

Trajectory shifts are generally precipitated by a major economic event, such as job loss or disability. Importantly, these economic events do not operate in a vacuum but instead create new sources of stress and potentially exacerbate existing mental health conditions. For instance, many providers reported that earning disruptions often make their clients unable to afford their rent, placing low-income survivors at risk of homelessness. A lawyer reported how this affects her clients’ mental health: “We have suicidal clients because they can’t find a place to live, and they’re on the edge of homelessness.” Drawing a connection between adequate income and recovery, she continued,

If you can’t hit safety first, and then food and shelter and clothing, you can’t really move on with the rest of your life. And if you’re living out of your car . . . how are you expected to move forward with recovery? (Provider 103)

Homelessness and suicide are two outcomes at the extreme of major trajectory shifts.

Seven of nine survivors described their life trajectories shifting dramatically in at least one aspect, including being unable to replace a lost job, the long-term inability to work, and decreased educational investments. The stories of Lee and Lil’ Miss, who were introduced earlier, are emblematic of major trajectory shifts. Even decades after being raped and losing their jobs, neither Lee nor Lil’ Miss had recovered her prior level of economic stability or income. Lee described the rape as “a big, huge redefining moment,” which she said, “economically it really did. It changed all the rules. It changed my life.” Lil’ Miss described her experience this way:

When rape happened, it was as though the rug was pulled from under my feet and I landed face down, nose first, and I had to work real hard to just even push myself up, never mind stand up and become a walking person again.

Sexual violence and its resulting mental health challenges had a long-term impact on Lil’ Miss’ life trajectory. As noted above, after the rape, Lil’ Miss struggled with unemployment, substance abuse, homelessness, and debilitating PTSD. At the time of the interview (24 years post-assault), Lil’ Miss was sober and in graduate school, but she had been unable to resume full-time work and had subsisted on meager payments from SSDI for 10 years. Her income, which is right at the poverty line, is one fifth of what she made the year before she was raped. Like Lil’ Miss and Lee, one third of the survivors in the sample reported that they never economically recovered from sexual assault.

Of course, many who experience the negative economic effects of sexual violence do recover with time. Several providers described sexual assault causing modest trajectory shifts or delays, which are changes to survivors’ employment or economic stability from which they eventually recovered and returned to their prior level of economic well-being. For instance, a counselor offered this story:

[My client] was going to apply for graduate school and after the assault decided to take another year . . . She got a fairly low-paying job and paid her bills . . . and then did some healing and then went to graduate school and finished graduate school and now makes a decent amount of money . . . It was in fact a very psychologically healthy choice, but economically, over the span of her life, one of her thirty-whatever years of being able to be a highly paid professional was taken away from her. (Provider 106)

This counselor suggested that taking time to heal helped this survivor to recover.

In a similar vein, several providers reported that affordable and timely counseling and assistance are important to prevent a downward economic spiral. For instance, a counselor described what she has observed among those who lack such supports: “People that don’t have the support or didn’t have the support are coming years later. Those are the people we may see on SSDI, that had, you know, 15 menial jobs and bounced from place to place to place” (Provider 117). In contrast, she said that her clients who have received counseling and formal support tend to perform better and are more likely to successfully return to work. A lawyer explained how her agency explicitly aims to help survivors return to their original trajectories:

What we try to do is keep them on that original path as much as possible, because that original path is probably going to lead them closer to the success they had planned for themselves than trying to veer off and take an alternate course, which likely isn’t well thought out, is done in a place of trauma or depression or anxiety, a knee-jerk reaction, just trying to put food on the table. (Provider 103)

Several survivors also described recovering after temporary economic setbacks. For instance, Sally, who was introduced earlier, was raped by strangers when she was a recent college graduate. When her employer refused to give her time off, she quit her job and worked temporary and low-wage jobs for several years. She described her frustration at falling behind her peers during that time: “At this point I was like 28. To me that seemed so old . . . I had friends who were practicing lawyers, and I felt so ashamed and so like, ‘Wow, this has been 5 years of just like crawl out.’” Five years after the rape, Sally went to graduate school and ultimately obtained a satisfying job at a college. Sally had a clear sense that the rape had knocked her off the path she was on and caused her a multi-year delay in pursuing her education and career. Other survivors described similarly “modest” trajectory shifts, such as delaying graduate school or staying in a low-status job for two extra years. Although Sally and other survivors eventually recovered economically from these setbacks, they lost years of productivity and fell behind their peers and their own plans for their lives. It is difficult to quantify the losses that result from these delays and trajectory shifts, but these survivors’ experiences suggest that the effects are real and worthy of attention.

Discussion

Beyond the trauma of sexual victimization, these findings suggest that many survivors also pay a heavy financial penalty in the form of decreased earnings and barriers to work. These data suggest that sexual assault affects employment and earnings largely through its well-documented effects on survivors’ mental health and sense of safety. For instance, survivors’ fear, anxiety, or PTSD symptoms can interfere with their work in myriad ways, such as by diminishing their ability to concentrate or causing them to need time off to seek counseling. Respondents also described depression, dissociation, and substance abuse interfering with survivors’ work. Such difficulties are compounded when survivors are fearful to go to work because the perpetrator lives or works nearby. Through pathways of this kind, sexual violence and the related trauma response can disrupt survivors’ employment in several ways, including through time off, poor job performance, job loss, and the long-term inability to work. By decreasing or disrupting earnings, these interrelated employment consequences have implications for survivors’ economic well-being in the months or years following the assault. Taking a few days off from work can cost someone those days’ earnings and may place some survivors at risk of losing their jobs. At the other extreme, the inability to work means no earned income, which has clear implications for most survivors’ economic stability. These economic impacts, though important in themselves, also create ripple effects, such that many respondents described sexual violence as starting “a downward spiral” or “derailing them” from their intended paths. Indeed, for many survivors, these employment consequences compound one another to shift survivors’ long-term economic trajectories by removing opportunities or changing their long-term earning potential. In this way, sexual assault has profound implications for a survivor’s life course.

Participants in this study suggested that timely access to counseling and other supportive services can help some survivors to prevent a downward economic spiral. However, the present study was unable to thoroughly assess whether and how counseling and other resources might mitigate the negative economic effects of sexual assault. Other researchers have identified services and resources that facilitate improved mental health and recovery among sexual assault survivors, including rape crisis counseling, medical and legal advocacy, informal social supports, and approach-oriented coping (Campbell, Dworkin, & Cabral, 2009; Frazier, Tashiro, Berman, Steger, & Long, 2004). Future research should examine how these and other factors affect survivors’ economic well-being and resilience.

These findings also suggest that public policies may be an important source of support for sexual assault survivors. Many respondents described the value of public benefits for survivors whose income is disrupted and who lack financial resources. Notably, many existing policies address the economic needs of IPV survivors but exclude most survivors of sexual violence committed by non-intimates. For example, 40 states offer unemployment insurance to IPV survivors, whereas only 9 states cover non-IPV sexual assault survivors (Legal Momentum, 2011). Policy change may be required to ensure that a person who is raped by her neighbor receives the same protections as someone who is raped by her husband. More research is needed to determine whether and how policies can meet trauma survivors’ financial needs and reduce their economic burden during recovery.

This study is limited by its small sample size and non-random sampling technique. However, by highlighting the economic challenges associated with recovery from sexual violence, this work sets the stage for future research on the economic dimensions of victimization and recovery. Additional research is also needed to determine why some survivors recover and others endure permanent trajectory shifts. Understanding the financial effects of sexual violence can help researchers better understand and predict the recovery process, while helping practitioners to design more effective interventions for survivors.

Footnotes

Appendix

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Thomas Shapiro, Janet Boguslaw, and Ilene Seidman for their guidance and input and Nicole Fox for her insightful comments.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author was supported by a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship during the data collection and analysis phases of this project.

Notes

Author Biography

Rebecca M. Loya has a PhD in social policy, with a focus on asset building policies and poverty alleviation. She also has an MA in psychology. Her research primarily focuses on the gendered and racialized nature of economic inequalities in the United States. Her recent research examines the role of sexual violence in creating economic disadvantage and the protective effects of financial assets and social capital.

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