We looked at the cumulative impact of changes to personal taxes and social security benefits from 2010 by 2020 as a proportion of net individual income before the changes, by gender, household income level and ethnic background of individuals.
This showed how gender, race, poverty and income intersected, in particular that Black and Asian women in the poorest third of households stood to lose the highest proportion of their incomes. The graph below shows that Asian women in the poorest 33% of households stood to lose the most (19% of their individual net income or £2247 per year) and that black men in the richest households would lose the least (less than 1% of their net income or £315 a year).
The graph also shows that women stood to lose more than men as a proportion of their individual income regardless of income and ethnicity.
Gender impact analysis is also useful on individuals within household types. The second graph shows the relative impact of tax and benefit changes on net individual incomes of men and women by the type of household they live in, namely by partnership status, presence of dependent children and whether they are of working-age or retired.
Cumulative impact on individual net incomes in April 2020 of changes to taxes and benefits announced between June 2010 and March 2016 by household type and gender as a proportion of net individual income.
Women with children bear the brunt of the changes. They stand to lose more than 10% of their net income, whether in a couple or single. Interestingly, men in couples with children stand to lose only about 4% of their net individual income by April 2020, whereas women in those same couples would lose more than 10% of their net income.
By contrast working-age adults without children on average will lose virtually nothing, and this holds for both men and women. For pensioners, single male pensioners stand to lose more than single female ones, as a result of changes to the pension age.
