Written evidence from Dr Olivia Stevenson et al University College London [RCW0035]

The following submission represents the collated views of expertise from a range of disciplines across University College London (UCL). As a multi-faculty, comprehensive university and The Times University of the year 2024, UCL is well placed to respond to this inquiry to consider the impact of the rising cost-of-living on women and offer recommendations.

This submission draws on a UCL Policy Commission between UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, UCL Public Policy, UCL’s Grand Challenge of Justice & Equality, and Tortoise Media. Through a series of ThinkIn discussions involving experts from academia, policy, and the third sector, it developed a series of recommendations focused on policy responses to the cost-of-living crisis. The report is open access and can be read on the UCL website.[1]

The research used in this submission draws on vital sources of evidence on the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis and how it affects people’s lives, providing insights into women’s experiences, both for examining the immediate and long-termer impacts. Taking an intersectional approach highlights how different groups under the heading of women have been impacted by the cost-of-living crisis, and how and why people’s lives change, enabling a greater understanding of the differential effects on the cost of living and how policy responses have not been effective in addressing the cost-of-living crisis.

IOE is UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. From legacy to innovation, IOE have been shaping policy and helping government, organisations and individuals to navigate a radically changing society for the last 120 years.

UCL Public Policy is a specialist unit helping to bridge the gap between research and policy. Connecting academics with policymakers to support evidence-based policy, the programme draws on UCL’s strengths across a wide range of disciplines to tackle the most urgent societal issues.

UCL Grand Challenges is a ground-breaking cross-disciplinary initiative designed to develop solutions to societal problems. Bringing together experts from across a wide range of disciplines and sectors, they enable holistic responses to complex issues.

B. How are rising food, energy, housing, and other costs affecting women compared to men? What are the challenges for women?

B.1. There is much known about broad differences in how rising food, energy, housing and other costs are affecting women compared to men. For example, while the Office for Budget Responsibility has forecasted that real household disposable income per person will fall by 7.5 per cent during 2022-23 and 2023-24, multiple studies identify that women are more likely to be amongst the poorest group in society.

B.2. This is a result of women’s greater unpaid care responsibilities, leaving them less hours for paid work meaning that, on average, women are more likely to rely on benefits and receive more of their individual and household income from the social security system than men.[5] Given this, with cuts to public services and high inflation, just the slightest rises in food, energy and housing cannot easily be absorbed by women.

B.3. UCL’s research also shows a range of differing outcomes for women. Professor Rebecca O’Connell’s work has demonstrated that low income has major effects on mothers’ and children’s social interactions involving food and leaves them isolated and excluded from customary ways of eating and living. It also highlights how gender, ethnicity and migration status intersect in ways that put particular groups of children and parents at greater risk of food poverty[6].

B.4. In addition, UCL research led by Professor Murray Fraser and colleagues from applied health, medicine and the private sector have illustrated the differing impacts of the cost-of-living between women and men in regard to housing. The number of people in England now living in temporary accommodation has increased by 74 per cent over the last decade, with two-thirds of families having been in temporary accommodation for over a year.[7] Drilling into the data, female-headed lone parent households account for the largest proportion of homeless households in London, though not among people who are sleeping rough.[8]

B.5. The poor quality and a lack of an ability to heat homes also has a significant impact on women. An evidence review published by UCL’s Institute of Health Equity, showed that women are amongst the most vulnerable to the health effects of cold housing across several categories including: people with cardiovascular, respiratory or mental health conditions, people with disabilities, people aged over 65, households with young children, households on low incomes, and pregnant women.[9] This has been shown to lead to significant implications - it is estimated that around one in five excess winter deaths occurs due to living in a cold home.[10]

B.6. However, there remains a lack of evidence into the effects on different households within the broad categories of women and men, for example households with single parents, women with other protected characteristics, regional variations. This is due to a lack of data granularity. For example, the House of Commons Library, when collating statistics has reported that poverty data from the Department for Work and Pensions Households Below Average Incomes survey is measured at a household level, so data specifically on women in poverty is not available. Where granular data does exist, it is rarely linked.[11] 

B.7. The lack of real-time evidence related to the cost-of-living crisis and how rising costs are affecting different households is compounded by many people missing from official statistics, either for not being “poor enough” to qualify for support, or because of stigma associated with receiving benefits.

Recommendation: Partnership working – inside government (across departments and ministerial portfolios) to ensure closer alignment between policy domains, and also outside, with government working closely with academia, civil society and business will enable data gaps to be addressed and the long-term impacts on women to be evidenced and understood.

C. What long-term effects will the rise in the cost-of-living have on equalities for women?

C.1. Due to the current lack of granular data collected, the long-term effects of the cost-of-living crisis on equalities for women remain partial and poorly evidenced. Thinking about the importance of intersectionality raises questions about the evidence needed to underpin policy, which is not currently available.

C.2. Although referred to as a crisis, the response to the cost-of-living and associated inequalities (for women) has not generated research and evidence collection at the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the richness of available ‘real-time’ evidence is simply not there. The lack of data routinely collected about certain sections of society and a lack of intersectional approaches to standardised data collection remains a significant challenge for assessing the long-term effects of the crisis for women.

C.3. Emerging evidence is uncovering that many people are missing out on being counted and being included in statistics of claiming support and resources, either because they do not qualify for support despite being in crisis (e.g., not being ‘poor enough’ or avoiding the stigma of free school meals) or because they struggle to access resources or support and so do not claim the support that they are entitled to.[12] The long-term health impacts of going without food, or without nutritional food, as well as the mental strain of the financial stress and pressures being experienced by women will be widely manifested.

C.4. Further, young people engage in surveys and polling at very low levels compared to older age groups. Therefore, it is difficult to understand the cost-of-living challenges (and in turn, longer term impacts) that young women are experiencing in the crisis.[13] Questions should be raised regarding whether current methods of data collection and insight are accurately measuring impacts on all demographic groups, as response rates can be affected by a range of factors including age, language, and immigration status.

C.5. Policy accountability is essential when addressing the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. Without a clear point of accountability in the UK Government, the long-term effects of the cost-of-living crisis on women will remain largely unknown, and the necessary measures needed to alleviate the effects will be elusive. A key difference between the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis is the UK Government established clear lines of responsibility, set out comprehensive plans, and communicated these to the public. Conversely, the cost-of-living crisis policy response lacks this coherence and a clear end target or goal.

C.6. Without a dedicated ministerial portfolio and oversight function responsible for addressing the cost-of-living crisis, policies will continue to lack the necessary focus and coordination. The absence of a comprehensive strategy, cross department working, and evaluation frameworks result in fragmented efforts that fail to address the unique challenges faced by women in different household types and regions.

D. How effectively is the Government’s cost of living response helping women to meet the costs of essentials?

D.1. A revision of the UK’s social security system, linking it to real-time data on the cost of essential goods and the lived experiences of those experiencing poverty and hardship, would ensure Government's cost-of-living response is effective at helping women to meet the costs of essentials. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has reported that three quarters of the bottom 20 per cent of low-income households in the UK (4.3 million) report that they sometimes go without essentials.[14]

D.2. To date, the UK Government’s policy response has focused almost exclusively on economic measures. It has become apparent however that these are not sufficient for addressing the scale and nature of the crisis. Issues such as the lack of affordable childcare and poor quality and expensive housing have differential impacts on women and those living in poverty remain unaddressed through economic policy responses alone.

D.3. The UK currently lacks a specific government department that tries to bring all the information together when facing a domestic crisis. An example of how private and public sector data can be integrated to target support to those who need it, is how the social tariff[15], essentially a lower cost broadband package, is targeted to those on Universal Credit and Pension Credit. This targeted approach to support suggests a way forward that could be rolled out further and used to apply tailored, targeted policy responses aimed at helping women meet the costs of essentials.

Recommendation: The Government should design and implement a mix of universal and specific population-focused policies, that focus beyond economic measures, as this will ensure that no one slips through the cracks of support.

E. What could the Government Equalities Office do to ensure the Government’s cost-of-living measures respond to any inequalities women face?

E.1. To ensure the Government’s cost-of-living measures respond to inequalities women face, an intersectional approach to policymaking should be adopted. To do so, the Government Equalities Office should work closely with Office for National Statistics (ONS) and academia. In partnership they should decide and develop data granularity to address critical evidence gaps, as well as build a complete picture of the true impact of the cost-of-living crisis on women to be fully understood, and in turn, addressed.

E.2. A persistent lack of joined-up thinking is reducing Government’s understanding of the scale and challenge of inequalities. This in turn has knock-on effects on types of evidence collection and synthesis and then the development of effective policy responses to the cost-of-living crisis. It is imperative that policymakers develop multi-level models that are able from the outset to recognise difference, and to understand which differences are important for particular policies. Part of this development will require meaningfully engaging with different people and their experiences of everyday poverty. Whilst policies to tackle the cost-of-living crisis have been universal and blunt, adopting an intersectional lens would allow for much more targeted, effective support. But both approaches need to be in play.

E.3. Intersectionality has been implemented in a few social policy arenas. For example, in 2022 the Scottish Government published a report synthesising the research literature on the concept and applications of intersectionality for analysts and policymakers to help build their knowledge and expertise on analysing, reporting and using equality data to develop services for those with intersecting protected characteristics.[16]

E.4. In Wales, the Welsh Multi-Strand Project (Parken and Young 2008)[17], funded by the Welsh Assembly and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, aimed to explore how to achieve equality and human rights across six equality strands: gender, race and ethnicity, ability, religion and belief, age, and sexual orientation. One of the conclusions of the project panel was that: “Instead of investigating how best to address issues of equality for each individual strand, visioning entails revealing commonalities among the different strands and striving to identify common solutions that will benefit all strands. For example, the work of the panel revealed that financial support from the government provided to family members who stopped working or worked less to care for someone would be particularly beneficial to women and older and disabled people.”[18]

Recommendation: The government should apply intersectionality to all policies, replacing one-size-fits-all approaches as this will ensure more effective, targeted social policies that better understand and address people’s diverse needs.

Acknowledgments

This response has been developed by UCL’s Professor Ann Phoenix, Ms Siobhan Morris and Dr Olivia Stevenson. This submission draws on a UCL Policy Commission between Institute of Education, UCL Public Policy, UCL’s Grand Challenge of Justice & Equality, and Tortoise Media.

Through a series of ThinkIn discussions involving experts from academia, policy, and the third sector it developed a series of recommendations focused on policy responses to the cost-of-living crisis culminating in a final open-access report.[19]

The Commission acknowledges financial support from Research England’s QR-Policy Support Fund and UCL Public Policy.

We would be pleased to speak further about our response. Please contact Dr Olivia Stevenson o.stevenson@ucl.ac.uk.

November 2023