Women and Poverty (1989) - Combat Poverty Agency

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Women and Poverty .
In spit~ of p-owing. awareI.1ess of the existence of poverty,
very httle mformation eXists about poverty among Irish
i; women. We can estimate the numbers of women living below
'I a poverty line but we have little comprehensive and
accessibl.e information. on what life is like for women living
~>n 10':" 1I,1comes. Until, now the~ has not been a specific
mvestigation of women s poverty m Ireland. At best, women
have been an addendum to research focusing mainlyon men
or, m~re C?ften, in~ormation is not analysed by sex. The huge
gaps. ~n mfo~allon about poverty among Irish women
precipitated thiS book. Without adequate information and
analysis, new and effective policies to address women's
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:i poverty are unlikely to be developed. .' .
:1 .Changes now taking place in Ireland put women at greater
~sk of.pove~. They Include population changes ~ such as
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Increasmg mantal breakdown, more children being reared by
one parc::nt families and growing numbers of elderly women.
EconOmiC changes are also key, having .led to very high
?!1employ~ent and a ~wing number oflow paid jobs. There
IS al~o an m,creased rel~ance on women's unpaid work, as
pubhc spending on servIces, especially health services is cut
back. In many countries there is an emerging pheno~enon
known as the feminisation of poverty where. women are
forming an increasing proponion of the world's poor and are
more visible in their poverty than ever before. In the United
States of America, it is estimated that two out of every three
poor adults are women; in Britain 40% of all households
headed by a woman are poor.(4) Many other countries have
. alS? expe~enced a growth in female poverty - usually because
of Increasmg numbers of one-parent families and continued
low· wages for women at a time when their economic·
responsibilities have never been higher.
Perceptions ofPoverty
The true extent of poverty is still not widely accepted in this
co~nnr. Yet t1?e fac~s are a~ai~able to show that poor people
~XISt Side by SIde With a rnaJonty who have a fairly adequate,
if not a comfortable, standard of living and a minority who
'it
'It
are very.well off. One hears many excuses: there is no 'real'
"I' poverty In Ireland today compared with the 1930sand 1940s;
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no one needs to be poor now with social welfare; people are
poor through some fault or failing of their own. Each of these
statements is rooted in particular beliefs. The first in the belief
that there is only a single type of poverty, one that involves
absolute destitution and deprivation. The second belief is that
the social welfare system. eliminates poverty;.the third that
people have equal access to resources and opportunities and
therefore everybody has the possibility of getting on. Each of
these is false. . ,.' " .
. Poverty is not only about basic physical survival but must be
measured and understood in the context of the standards of
living and lifestyles of the population as a whole. So, being
poor today is very different from the poverty of earlier times ­
people donot have to be destitute to be poor now. The second
argument - that social welfare eliminates poverty - is also
untrue; Ending poverty is ·not even a stated aim of social
welfare; its main purpose is to provide a subsis.tence inco~e
for those who cannot keep themselves, that IS, to sustam
people at a basic level. With regard to the argu~~nt that.it is
the poor's own fault, resources and opportumnesare not
distributed equally: some people have more than others and
easier access to education to begin with, and therefore. are
better placed to prosper and advance themselves.
What is Poverty?' .' ." '. .
Even though it is a widely used term, poverty is a difficult
concept to define and understand. Yet it is important to arrive
at an acceptable definition of poverty, not, just for its own
sake but also because doing so.helps IUS to identify the
. measures necessary to eliminate it. ;" !. .
Poverty is mainly associated in the public mind with m~ney
and material well-being. One o[the mos~ enduring questlons
about poverty is whether it should be n:eated, as abso.lute .or
relative. Treating poverty as absolute IS to equate It WIth
physical survival, ie enough money to provide sufficient food,
clothing and shelter just to survive. Talking with people who
are themselves poor shows how this view of poverty fails to
take into account people's other needs (social, emotional,
political and culttlral) and that ~here is mu~h more to life t~an
having enough food and clothmg.to survive. Yet the nollon
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