A FEMINISATION OF POVERTY IN GREAT BRITAIN?

In most industrialised nations, women are over-represented in the ranks of the poor. Furthermore, it is often argued that this gender-based disadyantage has increased over time. In this paper the author tests this so-called "feminisation of poverty" hypothesis in Great Britain. Cross-sectional data from three years of the Family Expenditure Survey (1968, 1977 and 1986) are used. A poverty measure that is additively decomposable with population share weights, and is consistent with Sen's axiomatic approach to poverty measurement, is used to decompose the "total" amount of poverty into male and female "shares." Somewhat surprisingly, this decomposition lends no support to the feminisation of poverty hypothesis.