Incidence of poverty in working-age population in EU countries: A gender perspective

Abstract

Poverty reduction has long been one of the political priorities of the European Union and its member states. Despite the political declarations and measures applied, poverty is still a phenomenon that affects the everyday lives of about 70 million Europeans. Moreover, trends in poverty incidence show how poverty risks are sensitive to overall socio-economic development and how they are more actual for some vulnerable population groups. Following the popular concept of poverty feminization, the analysis presented in the paper aims to identify gender perspective relationship between the poverty incidence and characteristics describing the situation on the labour market or the levels of attained education in EU-27 countries. Attention is paid to poverty incidence among women and men of working age (population aged from 25 to 54 years) and differences are examined in the relationship to the position of both genders on the labour market. Presented findings, based mainly on the results obtained from the panel regression analysis performed for the period 2007-2020, suggest that policymakers should integrate a gender perspective into all policies focused on poverty reduction.