Does poverty have a woman's face?

Two days ago, a report was published interpreting the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey (ENIGH) conducted by INEGI, which measures poverty in Mexico from a perspective of inequality, caregiving, and a gender perspective. It was prepared by the Institute for Inequality Studies (INDESIG) and Oxfam Mexico. I dare say it's the first analysis developed using these approaches in a transdisciplinary manner, transcending simplistic interpretations. The report is titled "Rights or Privileges? A View of the 2024 ENIGH from the Inequality Perspective."

The most innovative aspect of this report is undoubtedly the care perspective within its analysis, which intersects with the gender perspective to identify the inequalities that it concludes are persistent and deep. Men and women do not face poverty equally based on their position within households. Poverty also has a gender dimension that impacts differently depending on the position in which women occupy themselves within each household and family.

Inequality regarding income, spending, and poverty does differ across gender lines. Poverty is not faced the same way when a woman is the single head of household with children as when a man is the single head of household. In Mexico, 17.9% of households are headed by single women with children (stop referring to them as single mothers). This percentage is highly concentrated among the lowest-income and poorest population, who, according to the analysis, never face the so-called "glass ceilings" but rather live from the so-called "sticky floors," a daily reality that prevents them from moving forward because there is always something that stops them from progressing toward autonomy. These women have a reduced income compared to their spending; that is, they are women who work more, but do not always earn more, and who care for others alone and constantly. They earn to care for others and spend to care for others.

Women in this situation find no opportunities in public services (provided by the State) to exercise their right to care and develop their autonomy. They spend more on care and food than on health and education, completely alone and oblivious to institutions. As this report states, "they spend on what they need to survive, not on what they want," unlike women from higher socioeconomic levels who can afford to pay for care.

Let's put it bluntly: two out of ten women in this country experience care poverty and, therefore, structural inequality, which, in turn, is crisscrossed by violence. In Mexico, the loneliness of caregiving is feminized, and, furthermore, poor, and the political class believes that with just a pantry, this right can be exercised. The initial analyses of this study demonstrate that we can indeed speak of a feminized poverty bracket and that poverty is always crisscrossed by the possibility of exercising, or not, the right to care.

In Mexico, poverty does have a female face, and the right to care, to be cared for, and to care for others, recognized as a human right, should be incorporated into poverty measurement from now on. Defeminizing poverty in Mexico requires a truly comprehensive care system with participatory governance that relies not only on infrastructure and welfare, but also on the construction of caring and co-responsible democratic institutions; that is, a country where caring is not just a matter for women, but also for men, for all of us. The data is overwhelming: the feminization of poverty does exist.

Let's celebrate that today we have fewer people living in extreme poverty, yes. But let's stop romanticizing the idea that the State is solely responsible for this through welfare measures. Let's demand actions aligned with rights and position the human right to care as an indispensable basis for overcoming our real and persistent inequality.