Women matter
This is a very serious problem in society and gender inequalities
Open main menu
Feminization of poverty is a phenomenon referring to the widening gap between women and men caught in a sequence of economic deprivation and scarcity.[1] This phenomenon is not only a consequence of lack of income, but is also the result of the deprivation of capabilities and gender biases present in both societies and governments.[2] It covers the poverty of choices and opportunities such as the ability to lead a long, healthy, and creative life, and enjoying basic rights like freedom, respect, and dignity.[3]
The term in itself is controversial and has been defined in many different ways focusing on income, assets, time, health deprivations, and social and cultural exclusions.
History
Definitions
Causes
There are several factors that place women at high risk of poverty. These include the gender wage gaps, women's prevalence in low-paid occupations, a lack of work-family supports, and the challenges involved in accessing public benefits.[10] Feminisation of poverty is a problem which may be most severe in parts of South Asia, and may also differ by social class.[11] Although low income is the major cause, there are many interrelated facets of this problem. Lone mothers are usually at the highest risk for extreme poverty because their income is insufficient to rear children. The image of a "traditional" woman and a traditional role still influences many cultures in today's world and is still not in full realization that women are essential part of the economy. In addition, income poverty lowers their children's possibilities for good education and nourishment. Low income is a consequence of the social bias women face in trying to obtain formal employment, which in turn deepens the cycle of poverty. Beyond income, poverty manifests in other dimensions such as time poverty and capability deprivations.[12] Poverty is multidimensional, and therefore economic, demographic, and socio-cultural factors all overlap and contribute to the establishment of poverty.[13] It is a phenomenon with multiple root causes and manifestations.[13]
Single mother households
Single mother households are critical in addressing feminization of poverty and can be broadly defined as households in which there are female headships and no male headships. Single mother households are at the highest risk of poverty for women due to lack of Income and resources.[14] There is a continuing increase of single mother households in the world, which results in higher percentages of women in poverty.[2] Single mothers are the poorest women in society, and their children tend to be disadvantaged in comparison to their peers.[15] Different factors can be taken into account for the rise in the number of female headship in households. When men become migrant workers, women are left to be the main caretaker of their homes. Those women who have the opportunity to work usually don't get better jobs with a furthered education. They are left with jobs that don't offer financial sustainability or benefits.[16] Other factors such as illnesses and deaths of husbands lead to an increase in single mother households in developing countries.[17]
Female headed households are most susceptible to poverty because they have fewer income earners to provide financial support within the household.[17] According to a case study in Zimbabwe, households headed by widows have an income of approximately half that of male-headed households, and de facto female headed households have about three quarters of the income of male headed households.[17] Additionally, single mother households lack critical resources in life, which worsens their state of poverty.[3] They do not have access to the opportunities to attain a decent standard of living along with basic needs such as health and education.[18] Single mother households relate to gender inequality issues as women are more susceptible to poverty and lack essential life needs in comparison to men.[19]
Parenting in poverty ridden conditions can cause emotional instability for a child and their relationship with a single mother.[20]
Many factors contribute to becoming impoverished. Some of these factors are more prevalent in the lives of single mothers. When demographic attributes of single mothers are surveyed, a few factors showed up in higher rates. Marital status (divorced or widowed), education, and race correlated strongly with levels of poverty for single mothers.[21] Specifically, very few mothers on the poverty line had a college degree and were having to "work to make ends meet".[21] Not only do these demographic attributes affect parenting in poverty, emotional attributes provided an instability as well when viewed by Dr. Bloom. Mothers have been noted as the "caregivers" or "nurturer" of families. Some stereotypical things that are expected of mothers are harder to provide in a low-income household when a mother is the main provider. Dr. Bloom's example of a stereotypical mother job was bringing treats to school on birthdays and expected to go to parent teacher conferences.[22] A researcher, Denise Zabkiewicz, surveyed single mothers in poverty and measured rates of depression over time. Since recent studies in 2010 had brought the idea that work was beneficial for mental health, Zabkiewicz thought to research if jobs were mentally beneficial to poverty line single mothers. Those results concluded to be true; mothers’ rates of depression were significantly lower when one held a stable, long-term job.[23] The likelihood of getting a full-time job decreases with certain factors. When these certain factors were surveyed in single moms they occurred at higher rates: co-inhabiting, college degree, and use of welfare.[21] All of these factors are ones that the researchers, Brian Brown and Daniel Lichter, identified as contributing to single mothers' poverty.
Employment
"Unemployable uterus", a graffito in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Employment opportunities are limited for women worldwide.[24] The ability to materially control one's environment by gaining equal access to work that is humanizing and allows for meaningful relationships with other workers is an essential capability.[25] Employment is not only about financial independence, but about higher security through an established legal position, real world experience, deeply important for sheltered or shy women, and higher regard within the family, which gives women a better bargaining position. Though there has been major growth in women's employment, the quality of the jobs still remains deeply unequal.[26] Teenage motherhood is a factor that corresponds to poverty.
There are two kinds of employment: Formal and Informal. Formal employment is government regulated and workers are insured a wage and certain rights. Informal employment takes place in small, unregistered enterprises. It is generally a large source of employment for women.[26] The burden of informal care work falls predominantly on women, who work longer and harder in this role than men. This affects their ability to hold other jobs and change positions, the hours they can work, and their decision to give up work. However, women who have University degrees or other forms of higher learning tend to stay in their jobs even with caring responsibilities, which suggests that the human capital from this experience causes women to feel opportunity costs when they lose their employment.[27] Having children has also historically affected women's choice to stay employed. While this "child-effect" has significantly decreased since the 1970s, women's employment is currently decreasing. This has less to do with child-rearing and more with a poor job market for all women, mothers and non-mothers alike.[28]
Sexual violence
A form of sexual violence on the rise in the United States is Human Trafficking.[29] Poverty can lead to increased trafficking due to more people on the streets.[30] Women who are impoverished, foreign, socially deprived, or at other disadvantages are more susceptible to being recruited into trafficking.[29] Many laws stated in Kelsey Tumiel's dissertation, have recently been made to try to combat the phenomenon, but it is predicted that human trafficking will surpass illegal drug trafficking amounts in the US.[29] Women that are victims of these sexual violence acts have a difficult time escaping the life due to abuse of power, organized crime, and insufficient laws to protect them.[31] There are more people current enslaved in trafficking than there were during the African slave trade.[31] "Branding" of human trafficking brings awareness to the issue claims Tam Mai, the author. This allows for public assertion and intervention. A claim made in Tam Mai's article states that by reducing poverty, thus may lead to a decrease in trafficking from the streets.[32]
Education
A major key to reducing women's poverty is to emphasize the importance of higher education.[33] Basic education, gives the ability to make informed choices and have opportunities to achieve goals. This enables not only women to reduce household poverty,[34] but as well increases children's chances of education,[35] and enhances maternal health and freedom of movement.[35] Although the world is making progress toward gender equality in education, approximately one quarter of girls in the developing world do not attend school.[36] The strong gender discrimination and social hierarchies in these developing countries limit women's access to basic education. [34]
Gender implications and the social costs of poverty include the difference between the way boys and girls get treated in households, girls not getting the education desired, dropout rates from school for girls, the need in pushing girls to be married off quickly, girls having no right or control over fertility and girls choosing prostitution as an escape this portrays the inequality and the difference between the situations girls and boys suffer.
Families that are poor and are living in rural areas of Africa will send their sons to school instead of their daughters for many different reasons. School fees will keep parents from sending their daughters to school because they are not deemed worthy of an education. Girls are also kept home to learn how to care for a family by doing chores, taking care of younger siblings, cooking and cleaning. Girls who are enrolled in school have a higher chance of dropping out compared to boys due to the chance of rape or sexual assault that could lead to an unwanted pregnancy.[37] There are extremely high levels of claims of professional misconduct, usually in the terms of sexual favors by females for grades. Because of sexual harassment by students and lecturers, there is a large inequality of higher education for females.[38]
Climate change
Women are more likely to be poor, and to be responsible for the care of poor children, than men.[39] Approximately 70 percent of the world's poor are women; rural women developing countries are among the most disadvantaged groups on the planet.[39] They are therefore unlikely to have the necessary resources to cope with the changes brought by climate change, and very likely to suffer a worsening of their everyday conditions. Poor women are more likely to be hurt or killed by natural disasters and extreme weather events than men.[39] There is also evidence to suggest that when households experience food shortages, women tend to go without so that their children may eat, with all the health implications this brings for them.[39] Since poverty and climate change are closely linked, the poorest and most disadvantaged groups often depend on climate-sensitive livelihoods like agriculture, which makes them disproportionately vulnerable to climate change.[40] These groups lack the resources required to weather severe climatic effects like better houses and drought-resistant crops.[40] This diminished adaptive capacity makes them even more vulnerable, pushing them to take part in unsustainable environmental practices such as deforestation in order to maintain their well-being.[40] The extent to which people are impacted by climate change is partially a function of their social status, power, poverty, and access to and control over resources.[40] Women are more vulnerable to the influences of climate change since they make up the bulk of the world's poor and are more dependent for their livelihood on natural resources that are threatened by climate change. Limited mobility combined with unequal access to resources and to decision-making processes places women in rural areas in a position where they are disproportionately affected by climate change.[40] There are three main arguments in association to women and climate change.[41] Firstly, that women need special attention because they are the poorest of the poor; secondly, because they have a higher mortality rate during natural disasters caused by climate change and thirdly because women are more environmentally conscious.[41] While the first two refer mainly to the women in the South, the last is especially apparent in the literature on gender and climate change in the North.[41] The feminization of poverty has been used to illustrate differences between male and female poverty in a given context as well as changes in male and female poverty over time. Typically, this approach has fed the perception that female-headed households, however, defined, tend to be poorer than other households.[41] Women are clearly more disadvantaged than men by poor household infrastructure or the lack of piped water and less-consuming energy sources.[42]
Femonomics
In addition to earning less, women suffer from "Femonomics",[43] or gender of money, a term created by Reeta Wolfsohn, CMSW,[44] to reflect many of the inequities women face that increase their likelihood of suffering from financial difficulties.[45][46] The image of a "traditional" woman and a traditional role still influences many cultures in today's world and is still not in full realisation that women are essential part of the economy.[47] Women have unique healthcare problems/access problems related to reproduction increasing both their healthcare costs and risks.[48][49][50] Research also shows that females tend to live five years longer on average than men.[51] The death of a spouse is an important determinant of female old-age poverty, as it leaves women in charge of the finances. However, women are more likely to be financially illiterate and thus have a harder time knowing how to manage their money.[52]
In 2009 Gornick et al. found that older women (over 60) were typically much wealthier than their national average in Germany, US, UK, Sweden and Italy (data from 1999–2001). In the US their wealth holdings were four times the national median.[53]
Health
Women in poverty have reduced access to health care services and resources.[54] Being able to have good health, including reproductive health, be adequately nourished, and have proper shelter can make an enormous difference to their lives.[55] Gender inequality in society prevents women from utilizing care services and therefore puts women at risk of poor health, nutrition, and severe diseases. Women in poverty are also more vulnerable to sexual violence and risk of HIV/AIDS, as they are less able to defend themselves from influential people who might sexually abuse them. HIV transmission adds to the stigma and social risk for women and girls.[56] Other ailments such as malnutrition and parasite burden can weaken the mother and create a dangerous environment, making sex, birth, and maternal care riskier for poor women.[57] In Korea poor health is a key factor in household poverty.[58]
Women as a solution to poverty
Due to the feminization of poverty, women often face the burden of solving poverty. They are depicted as all having the same social standing and needs, even though this is not the case.[59] This effect is exacerbated by the increased number of NGOs targeting solely female development. Women are expected to maintain the household as well as lift the family out of poverty, responsibilities which can add to the burden of poverty that females face in developing nations.[60] In many areas, Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs provide direct financial assistance to women with the goal of lifting them out of poverty, but they often end up limiting women's income-earning potential. The programs typically expect women to be responsible for the health and educational outcomes of their children, as well as require them to complete other program activities that don't allow them the time to pursue vocational or educational opportunities that would result in higher income-earning potential.[61]
Forms of Poverty
Decision-making power
Decision-making power is central to the bargaining position of women within the household. It is how women and men make decisions that affect the entire household unit. However, women and men often have very different priorities when it comes to determining what is most important for the family.[citation needed] Factors that determine which member of the household has the most power in decision-making vary across cultures, but in most countries[which?] there is extreme gender inequality.[62][citation needed] Men of the household usually[clarification needed] have the power to determine what choices are made towards women's health, their ability to visit friends and family, and household expenditures.[citation needed] The ability to make choices for their own health affects both women and children's health. How household expenditures are decided affects women and children's education, health, and well-being. Women's freedom of mobility affects their ability to provide for their own needs as well as for the needs of their children.
Gender discrimination within households is often rooted in patriarchal biases against the social status of women.[citation needed] Major determinants of the household bargaining power include control of income and assets, age, and access to and level of education. As women's decision-making power increases, the welfare of their children and the family in general benefits. Women who achieve greater education are also more likely to worry about their children's survival, nutrition, and school attendance.[26]
Disparate income
Lack of income is a principal reason for women's risk of poverty. Income deprivation prevents women from attaining resources and converting their monetary resources into socioeconomic status. Not only does higher income allow greater access to job skills; obtaining more job skills raises income as well. As women earn less income than men, and struggle to access public benefits. They are deprived of basic education and health care, which eventually becomes a cycle to debilitate women's ability to earn higher income.[63]
Lack of assets
According to Martha Nussbaum,[55] one central human functional capability is being able to hold property of both land and movable goods. In various nations, women are not full equals under the law, which means they do not have the same property rights as men; the rights to make a contract; or the rights of association, mobility, and religious liberty.[55] Assets are primarily owned by husbands or are used for household production or consumption, neither of which help women with loan repayments. In order to refund their loans, women are usually required to undergo the ‘disempowering’ process of having to work harder as wage laborers, while also encountering a growing gendered resource divide at the domestic level.[64] One of the major factors influencing women to greater poverty are the limited opportunities, capabilities, and empowerment in terms of access to and control over production resources of land, labor, human capital assets including education and health, and social capital assets such as participation at various levels, legal rights, and protection.[65]
Time poverty
Time is a component that is included in poverty because it is an essential resource that is oftentimes distributed inequitably across individuals, especially in the context of the inadequacy of other resources.[42] It is extremely relevant to gender, with a marked difference in gender roles and responsibilities observed across the world.[42] Women are certainly more time-poor than men across the income distribution.[42] Women concentrate on reproductive or unremunerated activities, while men concentrate in productive or compensated activities. Women generally face more limited access to leisure and work more hours in the sum of productive and reproductive work than do men.[42] Time poverty can be interpreted in regards to the lack of sufficient time to rest and sleep. The greater the time devoted to paid or unremunerated work, the less time there is available for other activities such as relaxation and pleasure. A person who lacks adequate time to sleep and rest, levies and works in a state of ‘time poverty’.[42] The allocation of time between women and men in the household and in the economy, is a major gender issue in the evolving discourse on time poverty.[66] According to the capabilities approach, any inquiry into people's well-being must involve asking not only how much people make but also how they manage their time in order to obtain the goods and services to meet their livelihoods.[67] Time poverty is a serious constraint on individual well-being as it prevents having sufficient rest and sleep, enjoying leisure, and taking part in community or social life.[67]
Capability deprivations
Since the last twenty-five years, feminist research has consistently stressed the importance of more holistic conceptual frameworks to encapsulate gendered privation.[68] These include: ‘capability’ and ‘human development’ frameworks, which identify factors such as deprivations in education and health. Another is 'livelihoods' frameworks, which indicate social as well as material assets. Also, 'social exclusion' perspectives, which highlight the marginalization of the poor; and frameworks which stress the significance of subjective dimensions of poverty such as self-esteem, dignity, choice, and power. A higher share of women than of men are poor, women undergo greater depth or severity of poverty than men, women are likely to experience more persistent and longer-term poverty than men, women's irregular burden of poverty is increasing relative to men, women face more difficulties in lifting themselves out of poverty, and women-headed households are the ‘poorest of the poor’ are the common characterizations of the ‘Feminization of poverty’.
Deprivation of health outcomes
Poor women are more vulnerable to chronic diseases because of material deprivation and psychosocial stress, higher levels of risk behavior, unhealthy living conditions and limited access to good quality healthcare.[69] Women are more susceptible to diseases in poverty because they are less well-nourished and healthy than men and more vulnerable to physical violence and sexual abuse. Being able to have good health, including reproductive health, be adequately nourished, and have adequate shelter can make an enormous difference to their lives.[55] Violence against women is a major contributing factor to HIV infection. Stillwaggon argues that in sub-Saharan Africa poverty associated with high-risk for HIV transmission adds to the stigma and social risk for women and girls in particular. Poverty and its correlates like malnutrition and parasite burden can weaken the host and create a dangerous environment, making sex and birth and medical care riskier for poor women.[57]
Social and cultural exclusions
Other metrics can be used besides the poverty line, to see whether or not people are impoverished in their respective countries.[13] The concept of social and cultural exclusion helps to better convey poverty as a process that involves multiple agents.[13] Many developing countries have social and cultural norms that prevent women from having access to formal employment.[70] Especially in parts of Asia, North Africa, and Latin America, the cultural and social norms do not allow women to have much labor productivity outside the home as well as an economic bargaining position within the household.[70] This social inequality deprives women of capabilities, particularly employment, which leads to women having a higher risk of poverty.[71] This increase in occupational gender segregation and widening of the gender wage gap increases women's susceptibility to poverty
Comments
Post a Comment