Older people are too often overlooked by policymakers, service providers and in programmes that are designed to support victims and survivors of domestic abuse.
This is in part because until recently older people were invisible in official statistics – until 2021, following a successful campaign by Age UK, people aged 75 and older weren’t asked about their experiences of domestic abuse in the survey from which the official statistics are derived.
This long-term lack of data, combined with ageist societal narratives that often represent victims and survivors of domestic abuse as younger women, often with children, means that for too long older people have rarely been considered as victims or survivors of domestic abuse.
But this isn’t the case. Current data shows that one in twenty people aged 60-74 and one in thirty people aged 75 and over experienced domestic abuse in the past year, equivalent to 700,000 older people. And these statistics are also likely to be an underestimation of the issue. This is because older people might not always recognise what is happening as domestic abuse, they might feel shame, or they might find it difficult to speak out after years of abuse.
Although we now have several years of data on older people and domestic abuse, we can’t compare this year’s data with that before 2024. This is because the Office for National Statistics introduced new survey questions in consultation with charities and groups representing victims and survivors, following the recent change in the law to include coercive control.
Domestic abuse and older people
Domestic abuse can affect older people from any background. It can be psychological, emotional, physical, sexual, economic, or a pattern of coercive control – and the perpetrator could be a partner, ex-partner or adult child. The official statistics tell us that around two thirds of those older victims of domestic abuse are women, and a third are men.
Shockingly, almost half (47%) of victims of adult family homicides are aged 50 and over, and a fifth (21%) are 65 and over. Women are at highest risk from their partners, whereas men are at most risk from adult children.
Older people face particular risks of domestic abuse due to their life stage. For example, older people may be more likely to have a physical or cognitive disability or long-term health condition which can place a person in a position of dependency and make it harder to seek support. And older people living on a fixed income, such as a pension, may feel they have few options due to financial insecurity. Others may feel bound by shared assets like a house, mortgage or life savings that can be used against them by an abuser.
Some groups of older people may be particularly invisible or find it particularly difficult to access appropriate support, including those with disabilities, care needs, those from Black and minoritised ethnic backgrounds and those who identify as LGBT+. A greater intersectional understanding of domestic abuse in relation to our diverse population of older people is also needed.
The impact of invisibility
The invisibility of older people in domestic abuse statistics and narratives means that policies and support services often don’t take into account the need to provide support to older people, the barriers to accessing this support, or the development of effective services that could support older people who experience domestic abuse.
This invisibility can also lead to a lack of awareness among health and care professionals who might not always identify an older person at risk of domestic abuse. In particular, health and care professionals may miss signs of domestic abuse, attributing these to declining health and mobility, or may not communicate with the patient directly, meaning that an older person may left at risk of further abuse. Some health and care professionals may lack confidence in approaching the issue with an older person, meaning that opportunities to provide support are missed.
The role of health and care professionals
We believe that health and care professionals have an important role in identifying abuse in older people and for some older people they may be the only trusted contact they have.
To support health and care professionals in identifying and reporting abuse among older people, we are currently creating a guide to highlight the different types of abuse, tips to start conversations, how to handle a disclosure of abuse, and steps that can be taken to protect the person you are caring for.
We are also creating a guide for older people to raise awareness of domestic abuse and highlight where an older person can seek support if they need it.
Both guides will be available from early 2026. We hope that by raising awareness of these issues, more can be done to support older people at risk of, or who maybe experiencing, abuse.
Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy
The Government should include actions to support older people in the upcoming Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, to increase awareness of this issue and reduce invisibility – because abuse has no age limit.
