Fa'side Women and Girls Group

Fa'Side Women and Girls Group, East Lothian

The current cost-of-living crisis does not impact everyone equally. Issues such as austerity, wage stagnation, rising inflation, and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, all impact women due to pre-existing structural inequalities. Rising costs have hit individuals on the lowest incomes the hardest. This disproportionately impacts women as they are more likely to experience poverty throughout their lifetime with lower levels of savings and wealth in comparison to men as well as being unable to increase paid work due to caring responsibilities.

The Scottish Women’s Budget Group (SWBG) have worked with Making Rights Real and members of F’aside Women and Girls Group (FWGG) to use gender budgeting tools to look at how the current cost of living crisis is impacting women and girls in the East Lothian area and how gender blind approaches to decision making are impacting on women and girls being able to access their human rights.

Between March and July 2023 SWBG. Making Rights Real & FWGG carried out a survey with women across East Lothian to find out how the cost-of-living crisis was impacting, the survey was promoted online, we attended community events and held a Room in the Toon to access people who may not have completed the survey online. In total, 278 women responded to the survey. The summary briefing of findings 'The cost of living crisis - I think about it all the time' can be found here.

Find out more about our work on gender budgeting and human rights with the Fa'Side Women and Girls Group here: