Poverty affects women more than men. It is a fact that, for almost half a century, it even has a term that attempts to delve into its causes and point out its particularities, the “feminization of poverty,” coined by social worker Diana Pearce in the 1970s. However, the The actual magnitude of this gap is unknown. We only know “the tip of the iceberg,” says a report published this Wednesday by NGOs specialized in poverty. The reason is that there are still different “gaps” in the statistics, several blind spots that make women’s poverty invisible, the study warns.
Thus, the official data from the Living Conditions Survey (ECV) reflect that 27.5% of women in Spain are at risk of poverty and social exclusion (according to the AROPE 2030 methodology) compared to 25.5% of men. , “which translates into a difference of about 700,000 more women” in this situation of vulnerability, recalls the document from the European Network to Fight Poverty and Social Exclusion in the Spanish State. (EAPN-ES), which its author, Clara Urbano, explained this Wednesday in Madrid.
Since 2015, furthermore, this gap in poverty between men and women has been “stagnant,” Urbano stressed. “The improvement has been notably higher among men (-605,000) than among women, in whom it has practically been maintained (-19,000),” the report states.
This stagnation, added to the United Nations warning about the risk of setbacks worldwide, has prompted the EAPN to analyze how we measure poverty, in order to detect the sources of inequality specific to women and be able to combat them with public policies. “Without a diagnosis with a gender perspective, it is difficult to end the feminization of poverty, and I would say poverty in general,” Urbano highlighted.
Of this analysiswe summarize some of the blind spots or “gaps” detected that hinder the measurement of women’s poverty.
1) The “black box of the home”
The Living Conditions Survey (LCS) measures poverty with a focus on the home, with a comparable methodology at the European level through Eurostat. This view – with virtues in other aspects – has a problem, which the EAPN report calls the “black box of the home”, and that is that we cannot know what differences there are within that same home. For example, economic inequalities in a couple in which the man earns much more than the woman, who has a part-time contract or who does not work.
Thus, in reality the gender gap that statistics reflect in the poverty of men and women is due exclusively to the much worse data presented by single-parent households and those in which only women live, highlights the EAPN, without being able to distinguish inequalities in the vast majority of households in Spain, which are those made up of families of two adults of different sexes.
Assuming the home as a unit without internal inequalities also implies the “idealization of home and family,” Clara Urbano has warned, as if it were a space “where everything goes well, in which there is no violence, when we know that In many cases the home is the most dangerous environment for women,” recalled the EAPN-ES Research Technician. Urbano has defended the measurement of household poverty, key for example in the analysis of child poverty, “but we must also measure beyond it, at the individual level,” he recommended.
2) Lack of measurement of care
The term “feminization of poverty” points out two key differential areas that cause greater poverty in women: the majority responsibility for family care and labor inequalities. Regarding employment, there is a multitude of statistical data on the disparity between men and women, for example in unemployment (12.5% of women compared to 10% of men) and part-time contracts (more than 72% sign them women), which reflects the Active Population Survey.
However, there are many more “gaps” regarding care, highlights the EAPN. The report recalls that, at its core, “economist and monetarist” approaches make care invisible as work when it is not paid. Although there are exercises to measure the value of these jobs at home, in the hands of women in the vast majority of the time, for example the one carried out by the International Labor Organization (ILO), these are specific and not carried out by institutions.
Furthermore, some employment statistics also do not include data on paid domestic work when the employers are individual families (not companies), the report warns. For example, in the Salary Structure Statistics, one of the most precise for measuring the wage gap between men and women, data on domestic employment is not included, one of which offers the most precarious salaries and with a lot of underground economy.
Even time use surveys, which make visible the disparities in what women and men dedicate to caring, working or their leisure time, for example, currently lack the periodicity recommended at the European level (four or five years). maximum). The latest data offered the INE are from 2009-2010.
3) Also study the ‘b side’: men
The report is committed to “expanding the picture” and studying not only poverty, which affects women more, but also its ‘B side’: wealth and how it is distributed, which currently affects men more. Go to full image. This means “not normalizing” or “resigning” to this unequal situation, but rather delving into it to analyze its causes and be able to apply public policies that combat them, explains Clara Urbano.
The EAPN technician warned that not only are there more women in poverty, but when they enter this situation they have more difficulties getting out than men. It is observed in moments of economic growth, for example, how they reduce unemployment more easily than they do.
Urbano demanded to stop at the reason for these disparities and analyze if public policies really reach the case of women or if they require adjustments. Because it is important not only that there are equal rights, “but that access to those rights is guaranteed.”
4) Without information on vulnerable groups
Another pending task involves greater transparency in data by public institutions and their interoperability, the exchange of information between different organizations. Until recently, for example, Social Security has not provided current data on households and people who receive the minimum vital income, a key policy on poverty in our country.
In addition, there are experts who demand that a Universal Income Declaration be agreed upon, that everyone make it, since currently there is a lack of information about the situation of many low-income households, which do not have the obligation to carry out this procedure with the Treasury. In the case of those who receive the minimum vital income (IMV), this declaration was required.
5) The intersectional view for a heterogeneous group
The EAPN also demands that there be an “intersectional” view in the study of poverty. That is, not only stop at the breakdown by gender, since women are not a homogeneous group, but also pay attention to other characteristics/identities that involve different experiences and particular inequalities. For example, include perspectives that include nationality, administrative situation, residence (an urban environment is not the same as a rural one), etc.
In statistical terms, these are sometimes complex exercises, but also about “political will”, the EAPN considers. A broader and intersectional look involves “money,” Clara Urbano acknowledges, since it implies betting on larger samples, which are more expensive.
The study also recommends complementing quantitative analyzes with qualitative ones, which can facilitate a broader and more nuanced look, shedding light on the margins where numbers do not reach. “If you do not apply this approach, you do not see the situation of the people who are worse off and we are not going to change the problem,” stressed the EAPN technician.
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