“I spent so many years focused on my kids, making sure they had everything they needed. But now, I have nothing.”– Unpack the social norms that can slowly push women into poverty.

Decades ago, 24-year-old Amina Bhaduri moved with her husband and two children from Bangladesh to London, hoping that together they could build a better life. Absorbing the scenic skyscraper buildings and the bustling streets of the city’s rush hour, they felt immersed in what they believed would bring promising wealth and success to their new family. 

What Amina couldn’t predict, however, was the subtle forces at play that would eventually prohibit the dreams she once hoped for.

First, being a migrant to a new country would create its own set of barriers. 

“When we were looking for work, it was a lot harder than we imagined. I feel like a lot of places didn’t take our qualifications seriously, I also think that they didn’t see us as intelligent because of our accents. I speak perfect English, but I noticed a lot of hiring managers talking down at me and being quite patronising. It was hard not having the same footing as someone born here.” 

Eventually, they managed to secure work, Amina as a retail crew member and her husband in a warehouse. With soaring costs, the pair realised that hiring child care for their kids was not an option. They also found that the government support schemes they looked into had strict eligibility rules or didn’t cover enough of the costs to make a real difference. That is when they decided that Amina should reduce her hours so she could be there for the kids.

“It didn’t feel like a choice, it felt like what I should do. It was more of an expectation in the family that I was the one to stay at home more as the mother- so I didn’t really question it. My husband earned more than me so it made financial sense for me to stay at home anyway. It wasn’t luxurious, but we got by.

“When you make these sacrifices, you don’t always realise the long-term cost. As the years went on, I worked fewer hours to stay with the kids, and over time, my income became way less than my husband’s.”

At the time, it didn’t matter to her since their money combined made things work. However, years later when the children moved out and their marriage fell apart, things took a turn for the worse.

The consequences of reducing her hours became painfully clear. Now, 62-years-old and approaching retirement, she realised the financial insecurity she faced due to her lack of earnings. The sacrifices she made for her family, while seemingly necessary at the time, had left her with limited resources in her later years.

“I never imagined I would be this close to retirement and unable to support myself. It’s heartbreaking.”

The legal fees of the divorce itself, combined with the long-term impact of reducing her hours, meant that the little payout she received from her husband made a scarce impact on her financial situation.

“I’ve been left with this awful predicament and It’s not really like I had a choice- someone had to look after the kids and it’s not like we were able to afford childcare. Surely it’s a poorly designed system if you have to choose between supporting yourself or supporting the kids.

“It feels unfair. It feels like I gave everything, and in return, the world gave me nothing.”

There are nearly 6 million women in the UK today with the potential to struggle like Amina. 

As a result of systemic structures making women more likely to take on unpaid caregiving among children and elderly, unpaid care has reached rocketing disproportionate rates between men and women in the UK. According to the Office for National Statistics, women perform 60% more unpaid caregiving than men, contributing an estimated £700 billion to the economy annually.

“Existing policies have definitely perpetuated a heteronormative dynamic,” says Beverley Skeggs, a sociology professor at the University of Lancaster. “Our current structures mean that traditional dynamics continue and perpetuate stereotypes about who’s expected to do the caring roles.

“We have a fairly ungenerous paternity leave allowance and pay, for example, which is tied with very expensive childcare in this country. Because of the existing gender pay gap, it’s also likely that the woman is already earning less than their male counterpart.”

Although maternity leave can last up to a year, paternity leave is significantly shorter, allowing 1-2 weeks. While the pay is the same, mothers would receive the pay for a longer duration. This results in only 20% of fathers taking the leave compared to 75% of mothers (ONS Labour market review 2023). The UK gender pay gap also stands at 13.1%, meaning that women earn, on average, 13.1% less per hour than men.

“When you combine insufficient paternity leave with the pay gap, you kind of have a setup where, when families start deciding to have children, it defaults to women doing the lion’s share of care. It would make more financial sense in these scenarios for the women to give up full-time work in the longer term.”

This unpaid workforce, which disproportionately affects women, often goes unrecognised and uncompensated. However, the crossover between gender and class can have an even bigger impact on women’s finances. According to an ONS report, working-class women are more likely to engage in unpaid care work compared to middle-class women.

“The disparities are massive, partly because if you are middle class you can pay for people to do a lot of your caring work for you,” says Erin Mansell, an activist from the Women’s budget group, “If you can’t pay for a carer you have to find ways of doing all that care which typically results in women doing less hours to look after the kids. 

“And when they take less hours they have less pay which puts them even deeper into the working class. It’s a vicious cycle. 

“There are a lot of challenges going on in the media about unpaid caring roles, but very few challenges focus on how it disproportionately affects the working class.”

These systemic, societal and economic challenges mean that, as working class mothers and women with other caregiving responsibilities near retirement, they are left with a lot less wealth then they could’ve generated. This leaves individuals like Amina to struggle.

“The financial difficulty I’m in now is overwhelming,” Amina says, with her voice breaking. She pauses, tearing up out of frustration, and takes a deep breath to compose herself, “I spent so many years just trying to get by, making sure my children were taken care of, and now I have to face the reality of retiring without a penny to my name.

“I can’t help but feel angry. I followed a system that naturally pushes women to stay at home and look after the kids, but now I see that the same system doesn’t acknowledge or reward those sacrifices.

“It’s hard not to feel like the system isn’t built for people like me. If working-class carers had more support, I wouldn’t have to choose between looking after my children and earning a decent wage. Something needs to change.”

To reduce the struggle that mothers like Amina have to face, Sarah Smith, a professor of economics at the University of Bristol, advocates for recognising unpaid caregiving in both society and policy making.

“Caregiving is the invisible backbone of society, yet it’s so undervalued.” Prof. Smith says, “You’ve got to think about who benefits from the work carers do- who gets to have jobs and participate in formal employment. Society wouldn’t function without it.

“Until unpaid care is fully counted and valued in economic measures like budgets, policy decisions, and even GDP, women will continue to bear the burden.”

Prof. Smith says affordable childcare, stronger labour protections for part-time workers, and direct financial support for caregiving could also make a difference, especially for working class mothers. 

“This is one of the most important issues in society at the moment and one that nobody wants to take responsibility for, apart from those who are forced to take responsibility, which is usually women.

“Unless we raise these issues and make them visible, reducing the harm caused by unpaid care will be impossible.

“It’s time to shift the responsibilities and ensure that every individual, regardless of gender, has the support they need to thrive in society.”