The book offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary analysis of economic violence phenomenon as one of the most pervasive yet under-recognised forms of gender-based violence in contemporary societies. Moving beyond traditional interpretations that confine economic violence exclusively to the domestic sphere, the book develops a broader conceptual framework capable of identifying the structural, institutional and socioeconomic mechanisms through which women’s financial autonomy is restricted throughout different dimensions of economic and social life.
Through a Structured Literature Review conducted on the international scientific literature indexed in Scopus and Web of Science, the work reconstructs the principal manifestations of economic violence and examines how they emerge across intimate partner relationships, workplace dynamics, entrepreneurial activity and broader processes of social vulnerability and exclusion. By combining legal, economic, sociological and institutional perspectives, the volume highlights how economic violence manifests through labour inequalities, barriers to access to credit, occupational segregation, welfare asymmetries, entrepreneurial exclusion and structural forms of economic dependency, and not only through direct financial control and deprivation.
Particular attention is devoted to the Italian context, examining the interaction between institutional frameworks, cultural stereotypes and socioeconomic conditions that contribute to women’s economic vulnerability. Combining theoretical reflection with empirical evidence and policy-oriented analysis, this work contributes to reframing economic violence as a structural issue of autonomy, citizenship and democratic participation. Accessible to scholars, policymakers, legal practitioners and professionals working in the fields of gender equality, welfare and social protection, the volume offers both a rigorous analytical framework and concrete proposals for understanding and combating one of the least visible dimensions of gender inequality.