Engender blog

Women pay the price in an age of crisis 

It is outrageous that women still do not have equal access to resources in modern Scotland. Women’s financial inequality has been accepted by our politicians and by our society more broadly. Enough is enough.  

Today, we launch our new series, Confronting Women’s Poverty, outlining our 5-point plan of action to eliminate the gender income gap and prevent destitution for women and their children.   

Marginalised women in Scotland are living in worsening poverty and financial insecurity. 

Engender has worked for decades on issues affecting women like social security, access to housing, childcare, and unpaid care, all of which are linked to women’s poverty and financial inequality. Some of the drivers of women’s poverty include: 

• Women tend to manage limited household budgets, often acting as ‘shock absorbers’ of poverty by going without themselves. 

• Women have less access to well-paid and secure work, occupational pensions and savings than men. 

• Domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women creates barriers to financial independence and wider access to resources for women. 

• Women are the majority of lone parents and primary caregivers for children, meaning their poverty is deeply linked with child poverty. 

Today we launch Confronting Women’s Poverty, to share research and recommendations for an effective response to tackling women’s poverty in an age of crisis. 

Our first paper breaks down what lies behind women’s persistent financial inequality and presents a 5-point plan to eliminate the income gap for women. 

Crisis after crisis: women pay the price 

The ‘gender income gap’ refers to women having less access to financial resources and security than men. Progress to close this gap has been undermined by successive crises in recent years, including austerity, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the cost of living crisis. Women have shouldered the burden of these crises, with disabled women, women of colour, migrant women, lone parents and unpaid carers are among those most acutely harmed.  

While the impacts of these emergencies on women - and the critical role that women have played in protecting and supporting their communities - have been well documented, the Scottish Government continues to fail women. We need decision-makers to take action to disrupt the broad political and social acceptance of financial inequality between women and men. 

Breaking the cycle: taking action in an age of crisis 

Women’s poverty is the consequence of ingrained, systemic failures that uphold and drive forward gender-based discrimination, but it is also preventable. A combination of ineffective policy, decision-making, and crisis responses have entrenched women’s poverty. Commitments to women’s equality and rights are continually deprioritised, forcing more women into greater financial precarity, deepening poverty, and wider harms.  

The gender income gap has been normalised in Scotland, but it is a political choice that guarantees harm to women and their children. To close it, decision-makers need to do much more to better understand and respond to the root causes of women’s financial inequality.  

Confronting Women’s Poverty offers the new Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament a 5 point plan of action to eliminate the gender income gap and prevent destitution for women and their children.

We call for:

1. A Taskforce on Women’s Poverty  
2. A Women’s Equality Fund - Crisis Support for Marginalised Women  
3. A Minimum Income Guarantee for Unpaid Carers  
4. A Roadmap to Universal Childcare for All  
5. Overhaul of the Public Sector Equality Duty 

Find our Confronting Women’s Poverty series here.