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Poverty Through a Gender Lens: Evidence and Policy Review on Gender and Poverty

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Poverty Through a Gender Lens: Evidence and Policy Review on Gender and Poverty DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL POLICY AND INTERVENTION Poverty through a Gender Lens: Evidence and Policy Review on Gender and Poverty Fran Bennett and Mary Daly for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation May 2014 Contact details Fran Bennett Senior Research and Teaching Fellow [email protected] Mary Daly Professor of Sociology and Social Policy [email protected] Department of Social Policy and Intervention University of Oxford Barnett House, 32 Wellington Square Oxford, OX1 2ER 2 Acknowledgments This review has benefited from input from a wide range of people, in particular Joseph Rowntree Foundation staff past and present (especially Chris Goulden, Helen Barnard, Conor D’Arcy and Sanne Velthuis). We are also very grateful to the participants in a consultative seminar held in November 2013 (especially to Jane Falkingham and Robert Walker who chaired sessions, Tess Ridge and Mike Brewer who were respondents, and Saltanat Rasulova who took notes), and to those who commented on our draft material. Many thanks to JRF for timely editorial assistance. Information and ideas about literature and other sources were provided to the review by researchers involved in other JRF reviews and the anti-poverty programme more generally; members of the group of independent experts on social inclusion for the European Commission; and many individuals, including Stuart Adam, Vidhya Alakeson, Tania Burchardt, Claire Callender, Bea Cantillon, Sylvia Chant, Yekaterina Chzhen, Mary Collins, Hazel Conley, Kate Donald, Carol Fuller, Helen Gibson, Jay Ginn, Anne Green, Susan Harkness, Alison Healicon, Sue Himmelweit, Donald Hirsch, Marilyn Howard, Stephen Jenkins, Man Yee Kan, Hilary Land, Erin Leigh, Alison Light, Jackie Longworth, Linda McDowell, Ron McQuaid, Jo Morris, David Perfect, Lucinda Platt, Sophie Ponthieux, Lynn Prince Cooke, Sandy Ruxton, Mary Ann Stephenson, Kitty Stewart, Holly Sutherland, Pat Thane, Pamela Trevithick and Athina Vlachantoni. We thank them all. Special thanks for their contributions/comments to Jonathan Bradshaw, Jackie Goode, John Hills, Ken Jones, Ruth Lister, Debora Price, and Dominic Weinberg. None of those mentioned above should be held responsible for any errors. 3 Abbreviations AA Attendance allowance BHPS British Household Panel Survey CCT Conditional cash transfer DLA Disability Living Allowance DWP Department for Work and Pensions EIA Equality impact assessment ERA Employment Retention and Advancement FACS Families and Children Study IFS Institute for Fiscal Studies JRF Joseph Rowntree Foundation JSA Jobseeker’s Allowance LIS Luxembourg Income Study METR Marginal effective tax rate NI National insurance OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development POEM Partners Outreach for Ethnic Minorities TUC Trades Union Congress UC Universal Credit WBG Women’s Budget Group WFF Working for Families Fund 4 Contents Page Executive Summary 6 1. Introduction and Background 14 2. Definitions and Conceptual Framework 18 3. Gender and Poverty: Incidence 23 4. Gender and Poverty in Different Households 29 5. Gender Inequalities and Poverty Risks 34 6. Gendered Routes in and out of Poverty and Across the Life Course 50 7. Gendered Experiences of Poverty 56 8. Policy Review: Introduction 60 9. Overview of Recent Developments 62 10. Policy Review: Specific Policies 65 11. Principles and Priorities for the Future 96 12. Gaps in Evidence 102 13. Conclusions 104 Bibliography 109 5 Executive Summary Introduction and background This review forms part of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s programme to develop a set of evidence-based anti-poverty strategies for the UK. The remit was to identify and analyse evidence on the links between gender and poverty, and possible reasons for them; and to examine the impact on these links of specific policies and overall policy approaches. On the basis of the findings, the review was to make recommendations for gender-oriented measures to prevent and tackle poverty linked to gender and highlight any gaps in the evidence base. The review did not cover sexual orientation or family structure, as these were the subjects of separate reviews. Based on a rigorous and reflective review of the evidence, this report maximises the knowledge available from existing studies and evaluations. But it also argues that very few of these have focused in practice on the links between gender and poverty; and that analytical methods need to be further developed, in order to disentangle these links more fully and investigate the gender impact of policies affecting poverty or the risk of poverty. Definitions and conceptual framework The report draws on JRF’s definition of poverty: when a person’s resources (mainly material resources) are insufficient to meet their minimum needs (including social participation). Poverty has many aspects besides the material. But if that core is ignored, it becomes impossible to separate poverty from other broader conditions such as lack of wellbeing. Gender is defined as a constituent element of social relations based on perceived differences between the sexes, and as a primary signifier of power creating unequal access to resources. It is societal and structural in nature. Research has shown that women’s access to resources and opportunities is typically narrower and more constrained than that of men. This report examines the latest evidence to ascertain whether this is still the case (though evidence on the relationship between men/masculinities and poverty is hard to come by). The analytic approach adopted also has a commitment to considering intersectionality – other differences and inequalities cutting across gender and poverty. At first glance, the links between gender and poverty seem obvious. Women have poorer labour market attachment, tend to head poverty-prone households and have less ‘human capital’. But these are characteristics of individual lives, rather than explanations. Underlying them is the gendered nature of the processes leading to 6 poverty and potential routes out of it. Poverty viewed through a gender lens therefore requires an examination of social and economic relations, and institutions. The conceptual framework elaborated in the report locates the gendered risks and nature of poverty in practices and relations associated with the family, the market and the welfare state and their combined effects. While the two most visible systems of resource distribution are the market, especially the labour market, and the welfare state, a gender perspective highlights the family as a third. Resources can also flow between families and within communities. Gender and poverty: incidence Taking a snapshot, women in the UK are slightly more likely than men to be in poverty, measured as living in a household on relative low income. The same is true on average across the European Union (EU). Focusing on material deprivation also reveals relative disadvantage for women, although receipt of services and the impact of indirect taxation are harder to disaggregate by sex. Age is one cross-cutting factor affecting the links between gender and poverty. More boys are excluded from school; more are in care; and far more boys than girls are in young offender institutions. However, girls make up the majority of young people not in employment, education or training, many because of caring for others. Incorporating older people into the poverty figures generally increases the difference between women and men, although this varies by country, and the UK has seen a steep decline in pensioner poverty since 2000, in particular amongst single women. The rate of poverty among ethnic minority women in the UK is much higher than among White women, especially for Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. There is a similar pattern, but lower rates, for ethnic minority men. Perceptions of the relationship between disability and poverty are skewed by the inclusion of benefits to meet additional disability costs in calculations of household income in the low income statistics, without balancing this by deducting such costs from income. One study that did so revealed lone parents to be one of the groups most affected by disability related poverty. Gender and poverty in different households The links between gender and poverty are most visible in single adult households. So researchers have often focused only on these, or on ‘female headed households’ only. Such analysis can be useful. But it conflates the effects of living arrangements on poverty with those of gender, and sometimes also excludes investigation of men’s situation. 7 For a more complete and accurate picture, therefore, it is necessary to look inside the household, and in particular to explore the gender factors implicated in the poverty of couples. For example, research on a range of EU countries shows that men are more likely to live in ‘in-work’ poverty because of their family situation (including having a partner with no income of her own), while women are more likely to do so due to their own employment situation (low pay, part-time hours, etc.). Looking at more complex households, lone parents living with other adults can be protected from poverty if income is shared within the household. Gender inequalities and poverty risks Gender inequalities do not map directly on to poverty, but they do affect poverty risks. In terms of the family, the type of family/household one lives in can affect the risk of poverty. Economies of scale and sharing of resources help avoid poverty; but the widespread assumption (for research and other purposes) of equal sharing of resources is risky. Unfair or unequal distribution of resources in the family can result in hidden poverty in the present; and financial dependence carries a risk of poverty in the future. Methods are being developed to better investigate individuals’ access to independent income within the household. The distribution of caring and other responsibilities in the family also affects access to resources over the life course, and results in ‘time poverty’. Such responsibilities can include supporting family members in other households too. In terms of the labour market, the acquisition of education and skills, and labour market engagement, are affected by gender.
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