Background to the Research

• This study looks at the role played by the Social Security system in protecting and enhancing the income of men and women or working age in Northern Ireland. Secondary analysis of the 1994 NILFS allowed the authors to examine gender differences in access to benefits and income disparity.

Main Findings

Gender differences in receipt of benefits

• Women were less likely than men to receive all benefits apart from Family Credit and Severe Disablement Allowance.
• Two thirds of women not in employment in 1994 received no income maintenance benefit. Nearly two and a half times as many unemployed women as men were not receiving any benefit.
• Because of the prevalence of women in low-paid and part-time work, women are more likely than men to combine earnings and benefit receipt. Six per cent of employed and self-employed women received income maintenance benefits compared with 3% of comparable men.
• In relation to contributory benefits, 19% of women employee,s but only 6% of male employee,s earned less than the level at which National Insurance contributions become available (during the period 1993-1996).

Gender differences in personal incomes

• Unemployed men had an average income of £59 per week in 1994, compared with £39 for women.
• The income disparity between men and women increases when benefit income is added to earnings because of differential access to benefits.
• The income effects of men receiving income maintenance benefits on behalf of their female partners and children as well as themselves account for most of the differences in benefit income.
• Following retirement, the Social Security system is more effective in equalising men's and women's incomes.

The distribution of women's personal incomes

• The percentage of women's average income to men's is 66.4% in the 25-34 year age group, 55.4% in the 35-44 year group and 43.5 in the 45-54 year group.
• A woman living as part of a couple receives only 50% of the average total income of a man living in similar circumstance. Women's incomes remain low compared with those of men and the structure of the Social Security system exacerbates the problem for women of working age.