Caritas Europa has written a position paper on women’s poverty in Europe. The paper outlines recommendations urging EU policymakers to better tackle the challenges faced by women experiencing poverty in Europe ahead of the next European Parliament elections in May 2024.

Women persistently face greater socio-economic challenges and higher levels of poverty than men in all age categories. They generally work more on precarious contracts than men, have lower pay and a larger share of uncompensated childcare work. Certain groups of women, such as women over the age of 65, women with disabilities or from ethnic minorities, face intersecting forms of discrimination when accessing education, healthcare, employment and social services. Since COVID-19, inequalities between men and women have grown in employment, education and health. With the current cost-of-living crisis, women’s challenges have worsened as they are disproportionately affected, partly due to their lower average income, poor and energy inefficient housing and dependency on social benefits.

In 2021, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on women’s poverty in Europe, but no further action on this resolution has yet been taken. At current progress, the EU is still at least 60 years away from achieving equality between women and men.

This paper therefore urges EU leaders to go beyond a resolution in lifting women out of poverty and to ensure that the EU and its Member States take more action in mainstreaming equality between men and women across all its policies.

Ahead of the next European Parliament elections, Caritas Europa advocates for the following recommendations:

  • The EU institutions should adopt a framework directive on minimum income standards, covering all people aged 18+, in order to set a binding EU-wide quality standard for social safety nets based on household needs;
  • The European Commission should ensure the mainstreaming and harmonisation of efforts supporting equality between women and men across all policy areas, especially in regard to issues of poverty, which is missing from the current Gender Equality Strategy;
  • EU Member States must transpose the Adequate Minimum Wages legislation into national law as quickly as possible, and to its fullest extent;
  • EU Member States should implement the Council Recommendation on early childhood education and care, to ensure its availability and affordability;
  • EU Member States should also implement the Council Recommendation on long-term care, ensuring its availability and affordability;
  • EU Member States should submit as soon as possible a Social Climate Plan under the Social Climate Fund and a National Action Plan for the implementation of the Child Guarantee to guarantee access to affordable housing.