Women and poverty

Women and poverty is a major issue in Wales as well as being a global issue as a whole. Women's average wages and pension are still far lower than men's. Women suffer from the poverty of opportunity meaning that they lack access to training, advice and support to progress their careers. Women are still the main carers of children, elder or disabled friends and relatives at the time they are of working age. This means they often are unable to gain the benefits from working fulltime, overtime and out of hours training.

Women's Voice aims to:

• Highlight the issues causing the feminisation of poverty on a national and global scale.
• Encourage action by the government and other bodies on the causes of the poverty of opportunity for women.
• Ensure that the empowerment of women is a critical issue for the Welsh Assembly Government.

Gender mainstreaming

Gender mainstreaming is an important approach in highlighting the inequalities women face in society today. Gender mainstreaming can signpost those areas where women come across barriers that hinder their opportunities in life.

Mainstreaming equality issues has economic benefits to society as well as addressing fundamental human rights issues. By ensuring that equality is at the heart of society we ensure it is inclusive to a larger resource of skills and understanding. It also allows for services to be more efficient in addressing the needs of the employees and clients.

Gender budgeting can provide value for money and improve the effectiveness and transparency of policy. It can be used to reveal how apparent gender neutral services and policies are actually gender bias in the structure.

Publications

• What is Gender Budgeting (633 KB)