MiSoC Research Associate Dr Katrin Gasior reports on sharing our recent work with decision-makers in Austria
Our research team were invited to an event on women’s poverty risk organized by Caritas Austria and hosted by the Office of the Federal President of the Republic of Austria. The discussion focused on structural and institutional causes of female poverty and potentials for policy action. A gentle reminder to the audience was given, to move away from emotion-driven public discourses and towards evidence-based policy making, especially relevant for the representatives from parties, lobbies, media, think-tanks, social influencers, and NGOs at the beginning of an election year in Austria.
Our new research on women’s individual poverty risk was at the centre of the discussion.
Making the situation of women visible
Poverty risk is typically measured at the household level assuming that all resources in the household are pooled and shared equally among all household members. However, research shows that this is usually not the case (Ponthieux, 2013). Not all households share and most do not share equally. Instead, the evidence shows that the women’s consumption, living standard and bargaining power over the use of household resources are correlated with their contribution to household income (Cantillon, 2013; Himmelweit et al. 2013; Bonke, 2015; Kulic, 2014). Thus, it is important to look not only at household incomes but also at individual ones. Women’s individual income can also help assess the potential negative economic consequences of union dissolution or more broadly the level of financial independence they enjoy, potentially allowing them to leave the household if necessary.
Motivated by these arguments for uncoupling the financial situation of women from the household level, our research assessed women’s poverty risk, as well as protective factors based on individual incomes to fill an important research gap.
Individual assessments of poverty risk make a difference for women only
We calculate poverty rates based on individual incomes following a methodology developed in our previous research on gender income gaps (Avram and Popova, 2022). Although the paper focuses on women in the EU, we have calculated Austrian specific results for the Caritas event.
While using individual rather than household incomes make very little difference for the poverty risk of men in Austria, the poverty risk of women is much higher. 15 percent of Austrian men are individually poor compared to 32 percent of women. The poverty risk is 13 percent for men and women when measured at the household level.
Working more as the holy grail?
Similar to the UK, Austria is a country of part-time working women. The reasons for this are manifold but partly related to the lack of affordable childcare arrangements as well as to societal expectations.
One solution to improve the situation of women often discussed in the public discourse is to increase working hours. While this neglects the reasons for part-time work, our research also shows that this does not automatically solve the higher poverty risk of women.
It is true that women working less than 35 hours a week have a higher individual poverty risk than women in full-time employment. However, one in ten women in full-time employment is still poor in Austria. This highlights the role of the Gender Pay Gap and of lower pay in so-called female occupations.
Our data provides an opportunity to highlight such structural problems and to demystify solutions that blame individuals rather than focusing on changing these structures. It was great to see our work contribute to evidence-based policy making, as well as helping those on the ground – institutions such as Caritas – make a case for the importance of their support services.
Read the original paper here