Accumulating Financial Vulnerability, Not Financial Security: Social Reproduction and Older Women’s Homelessness

Abstract

In rich-economy countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand women are increasingly experiencing first-time homelessness in older age. Focusing on the specific case of Australia, this article develops a theoretical critical realist causal account of how a gendered role in care and social reproduction has increased contemporary homelessness risk by constraining women’s capacity to build financial security. We show how gender, capitalism and age have intersected as social structures to explain gendered economic outcomes for women over the life course; and how life events, individual women’s experiences, agency, and decision-making interact with these structures to explain homelessness. Women’s gendered financial vulnerability, accumulated whilst living conventional lives, sits at the heart of older women’s susceptibility to housing loss. Limited resources reduce their capacity to respond to crises challenging their housing security within the contemporary context of Australia’s unaffordable housing market.