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By: Gabrielle Sanchez
Picture this: a primary school teacher, cleaner and domestic helper walk into a room. Have them in your mind?
There's a good chance that all three of those people you imagined are women. Why is it that we immediately associate these roles with women? Are women more likely to be employed in lower income jobs? For decades, our society has been tackling gender inequality - so why is it still so prevalent today?
In 2022, UN women estimates 388 million women and girls worldwide were living in poverty. The term ''feminisation of poverty'', coined in the 1970s by Diana Pearce, is the concept of a greater prevalence of women in poverty, compared to men; how women typically experience poverty in more severe forms. There are several factors contributing to this issue (gender-based violence, lack of education for girls and the gender pay gap to name a few) , thus it would be ignorant to blame it solely on one cause.
Women carry the burdens of injustice: seeds of ignorance have germinated into stems of prejudice. Inevitably, it blossomed into discrimination and violence: being treated as property, whilst single-handedly dealing with the burdens of unpaid domestic work. These crops of misery raised alarm and were eventually plucked out through movements such as the suffragettes in the 1900s.
However, the roots are still with us today. Within occupational gender bias and lack of benefits for mothers, these hidden traps in the world of work that essentially drive more women into perpetuating poverty since over 10% of women live on less than $2.15 a day, globally.
There is still time to turn over a new leaf. Projects like Equal Pay Today effectively aim to tackle the gender pay gap, where they actively seek policy reform, litigations and changes in education. Moreover, ActionAid, an organization that helps women out of crisis situations, spent $31.9 million on their programs, such as the Turkey-Syria earthquakes in 2023- where they provided shelter and resources for many women struggling during the crisis.
This is simply one among many other campaigns that pursue gender equality that we could be involved in. By simply raising awareness online and on social media, this could even create a domino effect that pressures companies and businesses to support their female employees better.
It starts with us. By empowering women economically, we can propel the next generation forwards. By protecting women in poverty today, we can blaze the path to a better tomorrow.
Works Cited
Bloxham, Lucy. “The Feminisation of Poverty: Why Gender Matters.” Concern Worldwide, 19 Oct. 2021,
www.concern.org.uk/news/feminisation-poverty-why-gender-matters.Philipp, Jennifer. “5 Facts about the Feminization of Poverty.” The Borgen Project, 24 Apr. 2023,
borgenproject.org/feminization-of-poverty/.UN Women. “How Can Gender Equality Reduce Poverty?” UN Women – Headquarters, 28 Feb. 2024,
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