Women and Poverty

Women and poverty are connected for many reasons. Various structural factors work towards making women more vulnerable to poverty, or to keeping them in poverty. Starting towards the end of the 90s, Canada has been moving towards a different model for its economy, drastically cutting social services and worsening the depth of poverty.

Women are affected by poverty in different ways, depending upon their age, race, ethnicity, linguistic background, ability, sexual orientation, citizenship etc. Statistics provide some important indications of women’s poverty in Canada, but experiences of poverty are much more complex than the picture created by numbers alone. This fact sheet documents diverse women’s experience of poverty, the different factors that increase their vulnerability to poverty, and how austerity measures from various levels of government are deepening these conditions.