Poverty pathways – ethnic minority women’s livelihoods – new Fawcett report
40% of ethnic minority women live in poverty.
The Fawcett Society and Oxfam have published a new report on ethnic minority women and poverty with the support of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The report, Poverty pathways: ethnic minority women’s livelihoods, looks at why ethnic minority women as a group experience considerably higher rates of poverty than White women in the UK.
Ethnic minority women are amongst the poorest and most socially excluded people in the UK. Yet very little is known about their lives, or how to lift them out of poverty. Mainstream approaches simply do not see these women or their needs.
This report, published as part of Seeing Double, Fawcett’s flagship campaign on ethnic minority women, shows how the recession is on course to present two major risks if current policy approaches do not adapt:
* Ethnic minority women living in poverty will be locked into their destitution for the foreseeable future;
* Even more ethnic minority women will be made vulnerable to poverty.
The report outlines 7 key policy traps and the steps needed to get things right. It looks at household dynamics, moving beyond paid employment as a panacea for poverty, and how women’s lives change over their lifetimes. It shows how ethnic minority women need to be brought back into the policy picture if their poverty is to ever be addressed.
The report features a foreword Julia Unwin, Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and looks at:
* The extent of the problem: what is the evidence?
* The policy context: what isn’t working for women?
* The policy context: what isn’t working for ethnic minority women?
* Seeing Double – The alternative approach
* The way forward: next steps.
Notes:
1. In June Fawcett also published Lifts and Ladders: resolving ethnic minority women’s exclusion from power, a report which brings together all of Fawcett’s previous research on women and power and prepares the ground for a fresh analysis on why ethnic minority women are excluded from power in the UK. The report can be downloaded from http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/index.asp?PageID=959.
2. Oxfam works to overcome poverty all over the world, and in the UK. In response to Oxfam’s analysis and understanding of the race and gendered nature of poverty, a dedicated Race Equality Programme was set up in 2005. In partnership with key grassroots and strategic partners, the programme works to document, challenge and examine possible solutions around the experiences of poverty and discrimination. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/ukpoverty
3. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s purpose in the UK and Ireland is to help enrich and connect the experiences of individuals and secure lasting and beneficial change. One of its current aims is to support imaginative interventions that help build relationships and reduce social exclusion. The Foundation was established in Lisbon in 1956. The UK Branch, based in London, has for more than 50 years initiated and supported pioneering social, cultural and educational developments. For further information please see: http://www.gulbenkian.org.uk