Corporate Leaders on Domestic Violence, 2002

The findings presented in this survey show that America's corporate leaders have grown more aware of domestic violence as an issue that affects their employees, and have become less likely to dismiss the issue's bottom-line impact on business. Nine out of ten senior executives (91%) believe that domestic violence affects both the private lives and working lives of their employees. Yet, only 12% of corporate leaders surveyed say that corporations should play a major role in addressing the issue—the same percentage as when this question was first posed in 1994.

This survey benchmarks one conducted for Liz Claiborne Inc. in 1994. In both cases, most corporate leaders identified domestic violence as a major social issue (66% in 2002; 57% in 1994*). In fact, corporate leaders now rank domestic violence on par with terrorism (68%) as a major issue that affects society. But today, they are also significantly more likely to say that they are aware of employees in their company who have been affected by domestic violence (56% in 2002; 40% in 1994). And, only one-third (33%) thought that domestic violence had only a negligible impact on the bottom line; this percentage has dropped significantly from 1994, when one-half (50%) of the respondents thought that the impact was negligible.

Who Should Address Domestic Violence?

Corporate leaders still see domestic violence as more of a social problem than a business problem. When asked who should play a major role in addressing the issue, they continue to cite the family (97% in 2002; 96% in 1994*), social service organizations (89% in 2002; 92% in 1994*), the police (87% in 2002; 83% in 1994*) and the court system (77% in 2002; 85% in 1994*) as top choices. But today, corporate leaders are significantly more likely to see a major role for local government (72% in 2002; 54% in 1994), state government (62% in 2002; 40% in 1994) and even federal government (40% in 2002; 25% in 1994).

Not a Cost Issue

The 2002 survey asked corporate leaders about possible reasons why many U.S. companies do not have a domestic violence program in place today. When asked if it is because the cost of a domestic violence program is too great for companies, 59% disagreed. Instead, about two-thirds (66%) cited reasons based on corporate perceptions of the issue: companies do not realize the impact that domestic violence has on employee and company performance (68%); companies do not believe that having a domestic violence program in place will positively impact the bottom line (68%); companies believe that domestic violence is a family problem, not a corporate problem (67%); and companies believe that domestic violence should be addressed by law enforcement, not by them (67%).

This report was based on telephone interviews with 100 senior executives in Fortune 1,000 companies across the United States. Corporations were selected at random from the 2002 list of Fortune 1,000 companies. The results are representative of the views and opinions of this population of senior executives within a sampling error of +/- 9.8 percentage points on the totals. Interviewing was conducted between August 19 and September 10, 2002 by Roper ASW, a New York-based market research and public opinion polling firm. This is the second such study conducted by Roper ASW among senior executives on this subject matter. The first study was conducted in 1994.

*Change is not statistically significant.