10. Women and Poverty: The Feminization of Urban Poverty in Canada

Poverty is disproportionately experienced among men and women. Gender plays a significant role when examining the effects and problems that poverty poses. While poverty can be experienced in differing extremes, it is women who suffer higher poverty rates in almost all societies (Christopher et al.). It is people with disabilities, recent immigrants, and racialized men and women who face additional disadvantages and “all of these groups have extremely high rates of low income and, in all of them, women are the most vulnerable” (Townson). In this paper I discuss how the ‘feminization of poverty’ has created a situation where the number of women in poverty far outnumbers that of men, and how the discourse of feminized poverty is directly affected by the processes and structures of social exclusion. I argue that gender significantly influences the experience and response to urban poverty in Canada through unequal caregiving responsibilities, the dynamics that surround pay inequality, and inadequate government programs.