A new survey by Ipsos UK published by the Home Office and Surviving Economic Abuse on 17th June 2026 revealed significant gaps in recognising controlling behaviours as abuse. The research found that younger men are 3 times more likely than older men to fail to recognise controlling how someone spends their money as abuse.
According to the new data, younger men aged 18–24 are less likely than older men to recognise economically abusive behaviours as abuse. Almost one in 5 18-24 year-old men (19%) say that controlling how someone spends their money is probably not or definitely not abuse, compared to just 6% of 45–54-year-olds.
A further 19% of 18-24 year-old men do not recognise controlling access to a personal bank account as abuse. Younger men are more likely to miss these signs, with 16% of 18–24-year-olds saying taking out credit in someone’s name without consent is not abuse, four times more than the 4% of 45–54-year-olds.
Victims and survivors of economic abuse will benefit from a new partnership to tackle the issue from major UK banks including Monzo, TSB, Metro Bank, Santander, Revolut and HSBC who have joined forces with the government’s Enough campaign to shine a light on economic abuse behaviours that are often dismissed, misunderstood or missed altogether.
There will be campaign adverts in banking apps and certain physical branches, so customers will see details of four forms of economic abuse:
· restricting someone’s ability to earn
· running up debts in someone else’s name
· controlling someone’s money
· misusing payment references to harass someone
The campaigns are designed to prompt recognition in victims of abuse and trigger reflection among perpetrators.
My Reflections.
Whilst this could mean that young men might be more vulnerable to financial abuse, I think it’s more likely they won’t see their own behaviour as problematic towards their partners.
Amid other narratives of control we see from manosphere / red-pill spaces and the ‘Traditionalist’ messages coming out of an ever-more puritanical America this insight into young men’s attitudes around financial control and abuse isn’t all that surprising. When you’ve watched the manosphere for some time it means it’s relatively easy to see the links between young men who are being groomed to see themselves as the ‘provider’ and ‘protector’ and this can be seen as looking after the finances so that your female partner can become a traditional wife, have children and manage the home.
As much as this might sound ‘protective’ it is also a pathway to control and abuse – facts which will seem far-fetched when the idea of being a ‘provider’ is firmly cemented into the DNA of manhood by the manosphere and being ‘provided for’ is suggested as the ‘ideal’ for a woman. Remembering that 70%+ of all material served up by social media is driven by algorithms, young people won’t always be looking for the type of content that drives ‘traditional’ thinking around relationships, but with the growing pipelines of masculinity influence, tradwife and anti-feminist content it’s no surprise surveys bring us these type of regressive views on a more regular basis.
The State of American Men 2025 research report from Equimundo finds that there have been increases in narratives of control in comparison to the 2017 report – 42% of men stated that they thought ‘men should always have the final say about decisions in his relationships or marriage’ (up from 34% in 2017) and also 55% of men felt that ‘if a guy has a girlfriend or wife he deserves to know where she is all the time’ – up 9% from 2017.
This reflects a wider view of what I’m calling The Great Relationship Regression which seeks to drive thinking around what is ‘expected’ in relationships to be a return to less equal, more ‘traditional’ and restrictive versions of what heterosexual relationships or marriage should be – and this should be ringing alarm bells for all of us as it can conceal a number of unhealthy and unequal partnership dynamics.
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