Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T12:18:01.315Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gender and Poverty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Jane Millar  and
Caroline Glendinning
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A recent edition of this Journal (Volume 16, Part 2, April 1987) was devoted to a number of articles on the definition and measurement of poverty. Surprisingly, perhaps, this did not include any specific discussion of gender differences in the causes, extent and experience of poverty. But such gender differences do exist, though they are often obscured by much research on poverty. Our initial response to the special edition on poverty was to write a reply discussing how the various contributors had ignored the issue of gender. But women cannot simply be ‘added in’ to existing analyses; instead a different analytic framework is required. This article therefore begins by looking at some of the widespread evidence of the economic disadvantage of women compared with men. We then go on to discuss why it is necessary to focus on the gender dimensions of poverty. We argue that this involves far more than simply disaggregating data to produce statistics about the situation of women. Rather, this focus leads us to explore the structural causes of women's poverty and the gendered processes in the labour market, welfare systems and domestic household which interact to create and maintain that disadvantage. In the final section we consider some of the important conceptual and methodological issues which must be tackled if we are to find ways to investigate and measure poverty which are not gender-blind.

Type
Survey Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 1989 , pp. 363 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abel-Smith, B. and Townsend, P. (1965), The Poor and the Poorest, Bell, London.Google Scholar
Brannen, J. and Wilson, G. (eds) (1987), Give and Take in Families, Allen and Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Buswell, C. (1987), ‘Training for low pay’, in Glendinning, C. and Millar, J. (eds.), Women and Poverty in Britain, Wheatsheaf, Brighton.Google Scholar
Byrne, D. (1987), ‘The underpaid millions’, Low Pay Review, 30, 4–12.Google Scholar
Callender, C. (1985), ‘Gender and social policy: women and the redundancy payments scheme’, Journal of Social Policy, 14:2, 189–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callender, C. (1987), ‘Redundancy, unemployment and poverty’, in Glendinning, C. and Millar, J. (eds). Women and Poverty in Britain, Wheatsheaf, Brighton.Google Scholar
Cass, B. (1985), Poverty in the 1980s: Causes, Effects and Policy Options, ANZAAS Conference, Monash University, Australia.Google Scholar
Charles, N. and Kerr, M. (1986), ‘Eating properly, the family and state benefit’. Sociology, 20:3, 412–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charles, N. and Kerr, M. (1987), ‘Just the way it is: gender and age differences in family food consumption’, in Brannen, J. and Wilson, G. (eds), Give and Take in Families, Allen and Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Coates, K. and Silburn, R. (1970), Poverty: The Forgotten Englishmen, Penguin, Harmondsworth.Google Scholar
Cockburn, C. (1987), Two-track Training: Sex Inequalities and the YTS, Macmillan, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, D. and Utting, J. (1962), The Economic Circumstances of Old People, Codicote Press, Welwyn.Google Scholar
Cooke, K. (1987), ‘The withdrawal from paid work of the wives of unemployed men’, Journal of Social Policy, 16:3, 371–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delphy, C. (1984), Close to Home: A Materialist Analysis of Women's Oppression, Hutchinson, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1987), Social Security Statistics 1984, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1988a), Low Income Families 1985, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1988b), Households Below Average Income: A Statistical Analysis 1981–8, DHSS, London.Google Scholar
Department of Employment (1988), Employment Gazette, 03, 96:3.Google Scholar
Edwards, M. (1981), Financial Arrangements Within Families, National Women's Advisory Council, Canberra, Australia.Google Scholar
Fiegehen, G., Lansley, S. and Smith, A. (1977), Poverty and Progress in Britain 1953–1973, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Gelpi, B.C.et al. (eds) (1984), Women and Poverty, University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Glendinning, C. (1987), ‘Impoverishing women’, in Walker, A. and Walker, C. (eds), The Growing Divide, CPAG, London.Google Scholar
Glendinning, C. and Millar, J. (eds) (1987), Women and Poverty in Britain, Wheatsheaf, Brighton.Google Scholar
Graham, H. (1987), ‘Women's poverty and caring’, in Glendinning, C. and Millar, J. (eds), Women and Poverty in Britain, Wheatsheaf, Brighton.Google Scholar
Groves, D. (1987), ‘Occupational pension provision and women's poverty in old age’, in Glendinning, C. and Millar, J. (eds), Women and Poverty in Britain, Wheatsheaf, Brighton.Google Scholar
Henwood, M., Rimmer, L. and Wicks, M. (1987), Inside the Family: Changing Roles of Men and Women, Family Policy Studies Centre, London.Google Scholar
Homer, M., Leonard, A.E. and Taylor, M.P. (1984), Private Violence, Public Shame, Cleveland Refuge Aid for Women and Children, Cleveland.Google Scholar
Jordan, L. and Waine, B. (1986), ‘Women's income in and out of employment’, Critical Social Policy, 6:3, 63–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joshi, H. (1987), ‘The cost of caring’, in Glendinning, C. and Millar, J. (eds), Women and Poverty in Britain, Wheatsheaf, Brighton.Google Scholar
Karn, V., Doling, J. and Stafford, B. (1986), ‘Growing crisis and contradiction in home ownership’, in Malpass, P. (ed.), The Housing Crisis, Croom Helm, Beckenham.Google Scholar
Land, H. (1977), ‘Inequalities in large families’, in Chester, R. and Peel, J. (eds), Equalities and Inequalities in Family Life, Academic Press, London.Google Scholar
Land, H. (1983), ‘Poverty and gender: the distribution of resources within families’, in Brown, M. (ed.), The Structure of Disadvantage, Heinemann, London.Google Scholar
Land, H. and Rose, H. (1985), ‘Compulsory altruism for all or an altruistic society for some?’, in Bean, P., Ferris, J. and Whynes, D. (eds.), In Defence of Welfare, Tavistock, London.Google Scholar
Land, H. and Ward, S. (1986), Women Won't Benefit, National Council for Civil Liberties, London.Google Scholar
Layard, R., Piachaud, D. and Stewart, M. (1978), The Causes of Poverty, Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth, Background Paper 5, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Lewis, J. (ed.) (1986), Labour and Love; Women's Experience of Home and Family, 1850–1940, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Lewis, J. and Piachaud, D. (1987). ‘Women and poverty in the twentieth century’, in Glendinning, C. and Millar, J. (eds), Women and Poverty in Britain, Wheatsheaf, Brighton.Google Scholar
Lonsdale, S. (1987). ‘Patterns of paid work’, in Glendinning, C. and Millar, J. (eds). Women and Poverty in Britain, Wheatsheaf, Brighton.Google Scholar
Low Pay Unit (1987), ‘Life at the top: the top pay file’, Low Pay Review, 31, 40–43.Google Scholar
Mack, J. and Lansley, S. (1985), Poor Britain, Allen and Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Martin, J. and Roberts, C. (1984), Women and Employment: A Lifetime Perspective, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
McKee, L. and Bell, C. (1985). ‘His unemployment, her problem’, in Allen, S. et al. (eds), The Experience of Unemployment, Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
Millar, J. and Glendinning, C. (1987), ‘Invisible women, invisible poverty’, in Glendinning, C. and Millar, J. (eds), Women and Poverty in Britain, Wheatsheaf, Brighton.Google Scholar
Millar, J. and Bradshaw, J. (1987). ‘The living standards of lone-parent families’, Quarterly Journal of Social Affairs. 3:4, 233–52.Google Scholar
O'Higgins, M., Bradshaw, J. and Walker, R. (1988), ‘Income distribution over the life cycle’, in Walker, R. and Parker, G. (eds). Money Matters: Income, Wealth and Financial Welfare, Sage, London.Google Scholar
Pahl, J. (1985), Private Violence and Public Policy: The Needs of Battered Women and the Response of the Public Services, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Pahl, J. (1988), ‘Earning, sharing, spending: married couples and their money’, in Walker, R. and Parker, G. (eds). Money Matters: Income, Wealth and Financial Welfare, Sage, London.Google Scholar
Parker, G. (1987), ‘Making ends meet: women, credit and debt’, in Glendinning, C. and Millar, J. (eds), Women and Poverty in Britain, Wheatsheaf, Brighton.Google Scholar
Pascall, G. (1986), Social Policy: A Feminist Analysis, Tavistock, London.Google Scholar
Piachaud, D. (1987). ‘Problems in the definition and measurement of poverty’, Journal of Social Policy, 16:2, 147–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, H. (1984). Working Your Way to the Bottom, Pandora Press, London.Google Scholar
Sen, A. (1981). Poverty and Famines, Clarendon Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Sen, A. (1984), ‘Economics and the family’, in Sen, A. (ed.), Resources, Values and Development, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Smith, J. (1984), ‘The paradox of women's poverty: wage earning women and economic transformation’, in Gelpi, B.C. et al. (eds). Women and Poverty, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Rice, M. Spring (1939) (reprinted 1981), Working Class Wives, Virago, London.Google Scholar
Townsend, P. (1979), Poverty in the UK, Penguin, Harmondsworth.Google Scholar
Townsend, P. (1987), ‘Deprivation’, Journal of Social Policy, 16:2, 125–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townsend, P. and Wedderburn, D. (1965), The Aged in the Welfare State, Bell, London.Google Scholar
Veit-Wilson, J. (1987), ‘Consensual approaches to poverty lines and social security’. Journal of Social Policy. 16:2, 183–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, A. (1987), ‘The poor relation: poverty among older women’, in Glendinning, C. and Millar, J. (eds), Women and Poverty in Britain, Wheatsheaf, Brighton.Google Scholar
Walker, A. and Walker, C. (eds.) (1987), The Growing Divide, Child Poverty Action Group, London.Google Scholar
Walker, R. (1987), ‘Consensual approaches to the definition of poverty: towards an alternative methodology’, Journal of Social Policy, 16:2, 213–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, G. (1987), ‘Money: patterns of responsibility and irresponsibility in marriage’, in Brannen, J. and Wilson, G. (eds), Give and Take in Families, Allen and Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Young, M. (1952), ‘Distribution of income within the family’, British Journal of Sociology, 3, 305–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar