Women and Poverty in Spain (1981--1991)

Abstract

This paper focuses on the gender distribution of poverty in Spain in 1991 and its evolution from 1981 to 1991. For this purpose, we estimate three poverty rates (the head count ratio, the income gap ratio and the per capita income gap ratio) with three poverty lines (50%, 40% and 25% of the mean equivalent income) for Spain in 1981 and 1991. The evolution in the period 1981-1991 has been a general decrease in the poverty rates for the adult population. The gender differences have changed more pronouncedly in the lower end of the income distribution, when the poverty threshold is established at the 25% of the mean equivalent income. With this definition of poverty, women were over-represented amongst the poor in 1981, while in 1991 the situation is just the contrary, with indexes which show a smaller female share among the poor than the male share. The 50% and 40% poverty lines are consistent in 1981 and in 1991 with an almost equally shared poverty between sexes