Women who strike fear into their partners

Survey data released suggests that New Zealand men have a high representation in certain domestic abuse statistics. Photo / Martin Sykes

Kiwi women are an unusually possessive lot - if you believe their partners.

A national survey reported today by the Families Commission has found that one in every seven Kiwi men say their partners get angry if they speak to other women, compared with only 9 per cent of women who say the same about their male partners.

Men are also more likely than women to say their partners stop them seeing friends and relatives, and keep track of them "in a controlling or frightening way".

Overall, 23 per cent of men - compared with 19 per cent of women - report at least one of the six kinds of "psychological abuse", which range from being put down or abused to the children being harmed.

But men are more likely to threaten physical force or property damage.

The figures come from previously unpublished data from a 2006 survey of 5400 people about their experience of crime and their sense of safety.

The survey is being repeated this year, and results are due in 2011.

The commission's principal analyst, Radha Balakrishnan, said the report would be sure to spark debate.

"There is some uncertainty over the nature of the questions - whether you have fear in there, whether you have adequate context," she said.

Long-term studies of people born in Christchurch and Dunedin in the 1970s have also found similar proportions of men and women being assaulted by their partners, but crime and health statistics show men are responsible for the vast majority of serious violence.

The New Zealand report's results differ from similar surveys in North America and Britain.

A 1999 Canadian found women (13 per cent) were almost twice as likely as men (7 per cent) to say their partner "calls names, insults, or behaves to put you down or make you feel bad".

In New Zealand, the gap was much smaller - men and women reported such incidences at a rate of 13 per cent and 14 per cent respectively.

Canadian women were also more likely (4 per cent) than men (2 per cent) to say their partners denied them a fair share of the household's money.

In New Zealand, 6 per cent of both men and women claimed to be missing out on the money.

Canadian men and women were equally likely to say their partners got angry if they spoke to other women or men, stopped them seeing friends and relatives, and tracked them in a frightening way - all areas in which more New Zealand men than women reported being victimised.

A 2001 British crime survey found men and women equally likely (2 per cent each) to say their partners stopped them seeing friends or relatives, and women were more likely (2 per cent) than men (1 per cent) to say they didn't get a fair share of the money.

* nzfamilies.org.nz