Aging and intimate partner violence: A qualitative study of older Taiwanese women

Current research on intimate partner violence (IPV) against older women remains understudied and often overlooked in domestic violence and abuse studies. Using interpretive phenomenological analysis, this qualitative study aims to explore the lived experiences of IPV against older Taiwanese women. The findings of 13 in-depth interviews present the influence of culture on violence against women across the life course. In their young adulthood, abusers often used sex and coercive control to trap women in abusive relationships. As these women aged, they experienced different types of abuse, including physical, emotional, sexual, and economic abuse. The abusers also manipulated their adult children to isolate older IPV survivors and invalidated survivors’ lifelong contributions to the family. This study advances IPV research by intersecting aging, life span, and sociocultural gender norms. Social workers serving this population need to provide trauma-informed services that account for the cultural context of older female IPV survivors.