OANA MĂTU, INMA PASTOR, Gender and Poverty in Spain

Abstract

In this article, we present an analysis of the data retrieved from the Survey onIncome and Living Conditions. A gender-based poverty study was carried out, startingfrom the evolution of global taxes, together with factors that can explain thedifferences between the poverty variable affecting men and the poverty variableaffecting women in Spain. Considering these data, it was deemed necessary toexamine the concept of feminisation of poverty and its empirical basis. We concludethat, although slightly higher poverty levels can be noted in the case of women,compared with men, in accordance with the quantitative data, this difference is notsufficiently significant to indicate that we are dealing with a feminisation of poverty –understood as a process in which differences between poverty among women andpoverty among men increase incrementally. Based on our study, we consider that thesimple presence of a poverty differentiation between men and women is not sufficientto conclude that poverty is undergoing a process of feminization.

Keywords

• poverty
• gender
• social structure
• social inequality
• feminization of poverty