Challenge Poverty Week: Inadequate income traps women in poverty.

It’s Challenge Poverty Week, and today’s theme is adequate income. The focus calls for a Scotland where everyone has access to an adequate income for a decent and dignified life. Inadequate income is a fundamental driver of people’s experiences of poverty, and is caused in part due to low wages, decreasing job security and increasing precarity.

Poverty in Scotland is gendered, meaning women are more likely to experience poverty than men, including being more likely to be in persistent poverty and in-work poverty. This means actions to address inadequate incomes must include a specific focus on women’s experiences of poverty.

What causes women’s inadequate incomes?

Women comprise the majority of low-paid workers in Scotland, representing around 60% of those earning below the Real Living Wage, and  75% of the part-time work force. Women’s experience of poverty is driven by their concentration in low-paid, undervalued work. Their low pay is driven by the systemic undervaluation of ‘women’s work’, such as cleaning, care, and retail, which is undervalued because it’s done by women. Although the extension of the Real Living Wage in undervalued female-dominated jobs is a welcome start to addressing women’s low pay it doesn’t equate to revaluing the skills and status of these jobs. There is also currently no policy focus to address the systemic undervaluation of women’s work. There are no actions to address undervaluation within the Fair Work Action Plan, despite this being a critical step for realising fair work for women, and the National Strategy for Economic Transformation is gender-blind and does not recognise the economic value of the care.

Women are more likely to have caring responsibilities, which impacts their ability to take up paid work, as they often struggle to jobs that allow them to balance caring and earning. As a result, women become concentrated into low-paid, part-time roles, usually below their skill level. This is driven by a significant lack of quality, flexible and well-paid working opportunities, that would help women to balance paid work with unpaid care. Currently, women earning under £30,000 are the least likely to have access to flexible work, but more than half of them want flexible working to support their caring responsibilities. Without access to flexible working opportunities, women will continue to be concentrated into low-paid and poorer-quality work.

Close the Gap have previously highlighted how childcare provision significantly impacts women’s ability to engage in paid work. In our joint paper with One Parent Families Scotland, we highlight how childcare provision can determine whether women have a job, the type of job they have, the hours they work, and the amount of pay they receive. Current childcare provision does not meet many women’s needs, and this particularly acute for single parents (over 90% of whom are women). Although the expansion of childcare to 1140 hours is positive, we urgently need action to create a childcare system that is accessible, flexibly delivered and affordable.

This lack of recognition of women’s labour market inequality has worsened since the gender pay gap action plan has been subsumed into the Fair Work Action Plan. This subsummation has resulted in a significantly diminished focus on women’s labour market inequalities, and the adoption of a narrow, gender-blind approach to ‘fair work’ that significantly constrains progress to tackle women’s poverty. By adopting this broad, generic approach, it’s unlikely the causes of women’s inadequate incomes will be properly addressed, thus sustaining women’s labour market inequality and their experiences of poverty.

What is the impact of women’s low incomes?

One of the main impacts of women’s low incomes is their disproportionate experience of poverty, which reduces their financial security, and traps them and their families in poverty.

In recent years, women have been disproportionately impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and cost-of-living crisis, as women have faced greater financial pressure as costs continue to rise. This has pushed more women and their families into poverty, and for those already living in poverty, intensified their experiences.

Women’s poverty is also inextricably linked with children’s poverty. Past research has found where women’s disposable incomes decrease, so does spending on children. This means women’s lack of adequate incomes sustains the unacceptably high levels of child poverty in Scotland. So, if the Scottish Government want to meet their child poverty reduction targets, they have to ensure adequate incomes for mothers. Despite this, the most recent child poverty delivery plan does not include a gendered analysis, nor seem to recognise the gendered nature of poverty.

Women’s inadequate incomes have long-term implications on their financial security, particularly in their retirement. Because of their disrupted working patterns, women have lower pension savings than men – both in their private and state pensions. As a result, this puts retired women at higher risk of pensioner poverty, with older women more likely to experience longer and deeper spells of poverty than older men.  

It’s is important to note women are not a homogeneous group, and their experiences of poverty differ. Disabled women, racially-minoritised women, migrant and asylum-seeking women, young and older women, all face intersecting and compounding inequalities that worsen their experiences of poverty. For example, disabled women are significantly under-pensioned, and face challenges in securing adequate income for their retirement, and  racially-minoritised women have a particularly high rate of poverty.

How do we make sure women have adequate incomes?

Scottish Government must take substantive to address the underlying causes of women’s inadequate incomes, including their labour market and economic inequalities. These actions include:

• Implementing action to address the undervaluation of ‘women’s work’, which goes beyond delivering the Real Living Wage in female-dominated occupations, and actually revalues the skills and status of these jobs.
• Improving the accessibility, affordability and flexibility of childcare, including developing a roadmap to delivering 50 hours of high-quality, flexible funded childcare to all children 6 months and older.
• Improving access to flexible working options to ensure women can access good quality jobs that allow them to balance caring and earning.

Poverty is not inevitable, and with targeted gender-sensitive policy responses poverty in Scotland can be tackled.