The Feminization of Poverty: A Socialist Feminist Perspective

Bayan Saleh
When we speak of poverty in political or academic discourse, we often tend to treat it as a neutral phenomenon, as though it falls upon everyone equally and in the same way. Yet a critical class-based lens exposes the falsity of this supposed neutrality, affirming that poverty is not distributed evenly, and that women bear its burden in a more acute and enduring way.
This is precisely where the concept of the feminization of poverty comes in, not merely as a statistical description, but as a critical analytical tool that reveals the structural relationship between the capitalist economic system and gender relations, and the multiple forms of exclusion and marginalization that arise from both.
The concept emerged in the 1970s to describe the ongoing rise in poverty rates among women, particularly as the number of women bearing sole responsibility for supporting their families grew. Since then, it has become clear that poverty is neutral neither in terms of gender nor in terms of class, and that it is tied to power structures that determine who holds resources and who is denied them.
The latest data from UN Women indicate that 9.2% of women and girls live in extreme poverty, compared to 8.6% of men and boys, with the gap worsening in the 25 to 34 age group, where women are 25% more likely to live in extreme poverty. World Bank reports show that the global gender wage gap stands at 23%, rising to 47.9% in regions of the Global South such as South Asia. These figures confirm that poverty is not gender-neutral, yet numbers alone are insufficient for understanding what is happening, as they describe symptoms without digging into the roots.
When Exploitation Is Twofold
The feminization of poverty cannot be explained by focusing solely on the wage gap; it must be understood within the framework of a deeper economic structure that systematically reproduces gender inequality. Capitalism does not merely produce class disparity, it also reproduces gender disparity through the organization and division of labor in ways that serve the interests of capital above all else.
This is what Clara Zetkin saw with clarity when she argued that the working woman faces a twofold exploitation, neither dimension of which can be understood without the other: she is exploited as a worker paid less than a man in the labor market, and she is exploited within the family through unpaid domestic labor that guarantees the reproduction of the workforce without costing capital a single penny. Anuradha Ghandy reaffirmed this analysis, noting that this dual exploitation takes even sharper forms in Global South contexts, where class, caste, and gender intersect in a single system of domination.
One of the most important manifestations of this system is the separation between economically recognized productive labor and the unpaid labor necessary for the continuation of life. The domestic and care work performed by women forms the foundation for social reproduction, yet it receives no economic recognition, which diminishes its value and excludes women from economic independence. When socialist feminism demands recognition of this labor and its transformation into a collective responsibility, through public nurseries, care facilities, and social services, it is not calling for a partial reform. It is calling for a fundamental reorganization of the relationship between production and social reproduction at the heart of the economic system.
At the same time, women are integrated into the labor market in an unequal manner, concentrated in low-wage, precarious sectors with little stability or protection. Rather than becoming a vehicle for economic liberation, paid work frequently becomes an extension of dependency, particularly in the context of persistent wage discrimination and limited professional advancement. This situation is compounded by the double burden women carry as a result of combining paid labor with unpaid domestic work, without any fair redistribution of roles. This duality is neither a biological fate nor a culturally neutral inheritance; it is the product of a class-based economic system that needs to keep women in the position of the flexible worker who can be pushed to the margins when the market demands it, then recalled when cheap labor is needed.
Crises and Austerity: When Women Pay for Crises They Did Not Create
What makes the picture more complex is that economic crises, conflicts, and climate change deepen the feminization of poverty, with women disproportionately affected by these shifts, particularly in the most fragile societies. In a global context where economic exploitation intersects with historical forms of domination, women across vast regions of the world become more exposed to the harshest forms of poverty and marginalization.
Yet the issue does not stop at exceptional crises. The austerity policies imposed by international financial institutions on Global South countries over decades represent a glaring example of the feminization of poverty as a deliberate political decision. When public services such as education, health, and welfare are cut back, they do not disappear. Instead, their burden shifts onto women, who compensate with their bodies and time for what neoliberal policy has stripped from state budgets. Austerity, in this sense, is not a neutral policy; it is a gendered policy whose costs women pay first and most heavily.
The struggle against austerity policies and the struggle for women's rights cannot be separated. The woman who loses access to public education when schools are privatized, the woman forced to leave work when public nurseries close, the woman who bears the care of the sick when health budgets are slashed; all of them pay the price of economic decisions made in international institutions that are neither elected nor held accountable. For this reason, confronting the feminization of poverty is inseparable from confronting the global capitalist economic system that produces and reproduces it.
This gap is equally visible in the realm of employment, where women's participation in the labor market is lower than men's, and where a large proportion of working women are in precarious, low-wage jobs with limited protection. Women suffer to a greater degree from food insecurity and the absence of social protection systems, a reality that deepens their economic vulnerability and makes any external shock more capable of pushing them below the threshold of subsistence.
From Diagnosis to Change: Toward Radical Policies, Not Superficial Ones
What makes this phenomenon particularly dangerous is that it is not confined to individual suffering; its effects extend to household welfare, contribute to the intergenerational reproduction of poverty, and constrain development potential by marginalizing women's roles and excluding their economic and social contributions. The feminization of poverty thus becomes an expression of a structural dysfunction requiring radical treatment, not partial solutions that soothe symptoms without touching the roots.
This is where the divide between the class perspective of socialist feminism and liberal reformist feminism becomes apparent. Liberal currents limit themselves to demanding women's empowerment within the existing system without challenging its structure, focusing on individual empowerment through education, training, and access to microfinance. The socialist feminist perspective, by contrast, holds that these tools are insufficient unless accompanied by fundamental change in relations of production, property, and power. The woman who obtains a small loan in a society that excludes her from education, burdens her with unpaid domestic work, and subjects her to precarious labor laws remains a prisoner of the same structure, even if her situation improves marginally.
Confronting this phenomenon demands policies grounded in both gender equality and the elimination of class exploitation together. This includes achieving wage equality, guaranteeing women's legal rights at work, broadening social protection to cover the most vulnerable groups, and investing in education and training to economically empower women. It also requires recognition of the economic value of care work, the provision of public services that reduce its burden, and a redistribution of roles within the family and society that allows for more equitable participation in both paid and unpaid labor.
Yet these measures, however necessary, remain insufficient unless they bring about a change in the nature of property relations that structurally make women's labor cheaper, more precarious, and less protected. Full recognition of care work does not mean merely including it in GDP calculations; it means transforming it into a collective responsibility borne by the state and society, not by women alone. And achieving wage equality does not mean only raising the minimum wage; it means dismantling the class hierarchy in the labor market that makes women, particularly those from the lower classes, the most vulnerable in every crisis.
Ultimately, eliminating the feminization of poverty cannot be separated from a critique of the capitalist economic structure that produces it. The issue is not merely about improving living conditions; it is about a fundamental reconsideration of how labor is organized and how resources and power are distributed within society. As long as women bear the burden of reproducing life without recognition, without wages, and without protection, any talk of equality remains a discourse suspended in the air, never touching the ground on which millions of women stand every day.
Statistical Sources
• UN Women, Gender Snapshot 2025: https://www.unwomen.org/en/node/476303
• UN Women, Women aged 25-34 face higher poverty rates (2023): https://sundiatapost.com/2bn-women-girls-lack-access-to-social-protection-un-women/
• UN Women, Equal Pay (CSW61): https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/csw61/equal-pay