Poverty in Australia 2020: What does a gendered analysis reveal?
Today marks the release of the second ACOSS and UNSW Poverty in Australia report, an important document to keep civil society and government accountable to those who are being left behind in one of the most prosperous countries on Earth. In today’s analysis, Policy Whisperer Susan Maury (@SusanMaury) of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand (@GoodAdvocacy) provides a gendered analysis of the Poverty in Australia report.
Today the latest Poverty in Australia report is out, published by the Poverty and Inequality Partnership between ACOSS and UNSW (Sydney). Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand is an active supporter of this partnership, along with a consortium of other for-purpose organisations.
The 2020 report is full of sobering information:
3.24 million people in Australia, or close to 14% of the entire population are estimated to live below the poverty line, when that is measured by the OECD standard of living at 50% of the median income.
5.01 million people, or nearly 18%, live below the poverty line when that is measured by the European Union standard of 60% of the median income.
744,000 children under the age of 15 – that’s nearly 18% of all children – are living below the poverty line when measured as 50% of the median income. This jumps to over 25% when measured as 60% of the median.
The average person living in poverty is subsisting on $282 per week below the poverty line.
Welfare payments are below the poverty line, even when the energy supplement is considered. This is true even for the pension.
While unemployment had declined from 6.2% in 2008 to 4.8% in 2017, underemployment and precarious employment means many in poverty are also employed.
The story of poverty in Australia can’t be properly understand without a gender lens applied to the data. What does this mean for women? Let’s look at some data and trends.
Women are more likely to live in poverty than men, with 20 per cent of all women living in poverty compared to 17 per cent of men. Women spend more years living in poverty compared to men.[1] Some of this is due to gendered expectations for women, including being the primary carer of children which compromises employment opportunities in myriad ways. Women are also much more likely to provide other unpaid caring support. Despite having higher educational attainment than men, women are more likely to be working part-time, below their capacity, and in precarious employment. The gender pay gap remains entrenched, and it not only reflects a lack of equal pay for equal work, it also persistently reflects a premium paid in male-dominated industries compared to female-dominated.
While many of these backgrounding issues are more-or-less universally experienced by women, an overlay of experiences and identifies makes some women are at greater risk of poverty than others.
Single mothers
Single parent families, 83 per cent of whom are female-headed, remain the family type with the greatest experience of poverty.[2] With the transfer of thousands of single parents[3] to the Newstart Allowance annually since 2007, poverty has risen for sole parent families from 47 per cent to 66 per cent between 2009 and 2014.[4] While amounts vary since they are dependent on many variables (for example, employment or receipt of child support payments), Good Shepherd’s estimate of income for a single parent solely reliant on the Newstart Allowance with 2 children under the age of 12 is at a maximum of $2,594.96 per month – below full-time minimum wage ($2,963.20) and the poverty line ($2,769.48).[5]
It can also be very difficult for mothers to collect child support. While adequate child support payments that are received on time can alleviate poverty and assist single mothers to return to the workforce, Australia’s system places the onus on women to collect payments from non-compliant former partners, which means it is commonplace to have late or missed payments.
Bad news. Being born female in Australia tips the scales against you when weighing the chances of living in poverty. Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash
And yet mothers are highly motivated to do all they can to create an economically secure future for themselves and their children. The Department of Social Security reports that women who are reliant on Newstart are much more likely to have earned income compared to men – 21 per cent compared to 12.5 per cent. Of this group, women are much more likely to be earning ‘significant’ income ($254+ per fortnight); 16.2 per cent of women compared to 9 per cent of men.
Household poverty is passed along to children, and the Poverty in Australia Report 2020 tells us that the extraordinary high rates of children living below the poverty line is directly attributable to the policies that impoverish single mothers.[6]
Experiences of domestic and family violence
Another key contributor to women’s poverty is experiences of domestic and family violence. At least one in six women have experienced intimate partner violence. Of these, over half have left their partner. Women experiencing abuse also often experience – unsurprisingly – financial stress, disability, unemployment, poor physical and mental health, and low quality of life. Experiences of domestic and family violence often continue long after separation, and can disrupt financial security, employment and secure housing.[7] Many women and children leaving violence are reliant on the Newstart Allowance, but an inflexible system makes it difficult for them to receive regular payments.
Older women
There has been an alarming increase in older women’s experience of poverty. After single parent households, older women are both the poorest household type and the most likely to be dependent on income support.[8] For older women, a lifetime of reduced financial security due to the gender pay gap, interrupted employment, little or no Superannuation and relationship breakdown is being worsened by the change in the Age Pension eligibility from 60 to 65 years and the increasing number who are reliant on the Newstart Allowance. People aged 55 – 64 are the age group most reliant on Newstart, and the age group that remains on the payment longest. Older women suffer the most, spending an average of 191 weeks (over 3 ½ years) on the payment. Government data shows that, rather than workforce participation tapering off for older women, it is nearly level with women of prime working age: 58.8 per cent compared to 59.2 per cent. Nearly 70 per cent of employed older women expressed financial pressure to continue in the workforce, with 300,000 women requiring multiple jobs.
Employing an intersectional lens to understand the impact of multiple identities
When gender is overlaid with other identifies, disadvantage and marginalisation for women is magnified. This is particularly true for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, with approximately 80 per cent of households earning below the national average; women from culturally and linguistically diverse communities (CALD) or recently arrived in Australia, who while understudied have difficulty accessing services and are often banned from accessing welfare for up to 4 years; women with disabilities, who experience higher rates of poverty and lower rates of employment and with reduced participation in the NDIS; and women who identify as LGBTIQ+, who experience higher levels of disadvantage and may be discriminated against in employment opportunities.
In light of the tremendous wealth and resources Australia has, the rates of poverty revealed in the latest Poverty in Australia report are shameful. Understanding the drivers behind poverty is the first step in developing viable responses. Sadly, placing a gendered lens over the data does much to illuminate the underlying drivers behind high levels of poverty, particularly for women and children.
This post is part of the Women's Policy Action Tank initiative to analyse government policy using a gendered lens. View our other policy analysis pieces here.
Notes
[1] P. 36.
[2] Op. cit., p. 17.
[3] Single parents are moved from the Parenting Payment Single to the Newstart Allowance when their youngest child turns 8.
[4] See footnote on page 28 of the Poverty in Australia report 2020.
[5] See page 15.
[6] See page 28, Poverty in Australia report 2020.
[7] Domestic and family violence is the reason given for seeking out specialist homeless services 37.8 per cent of the time. Of these, 59.4 per cent are women, 34.4 per cent are children 17 or younger, and 16.2 per cent are men 18+.
[8] Ibid.