AGE participated in a meeting of the European Anti-Poverty Network in Belgrade, Serbia, which looked at the issue of gender and poverty and at the interlinkages between women’s poverty and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While action for women is crucial to attain most of the SDGs, AGE highlighted the particular necessity to focus on older women as well.
In line with our press release for international women’s day, we emphasised that poverty is a significant problem for many older women, who are faced with a gender pension gap of almost 40% and are much more often living alone, therefore bearing higher housing costs. Given the differences in healthy life years between women and men, women also spend a larger share of their lives in ill-health, where they would also need additional financial resources to cover out-of pocket payments in health care.
The seminar was an occasion for EAPN to launch a report on gender and poverty, available online.
For further information, please contact Philippe Seidel from AGE Secretariat: philippe.seidel@age-platform.eu
Further useful links:
- AGE work on poverty and social exclusion of older people
- European Anti-Poverty Network: Gender and Poverty in Europe, https://www.eapn.eu/20026-2/
- AGE Platform Europe, Older Women’s Poverty and Abuse: the Hidden Face of Gender Inequalities