In a Nutshell: Women are disproportionately affected by food insecurity

There are 690 million people worldwide that live in food insecurity. Of them, 60% are women and girls. This staggering statistic is true in our own neighborhoods, where many women don’t have access to sufficient healthy, nutrient-dense food. That’s right, 60% of families visiting North Valley Food Bank are female-headed households. Women who are single parents are three times more likely to visit a food bank. Similarly, more than a quarter of transgender women report sometimes or often not having enough food.

Societal structures are the root causes for these inequalities. Women continue to have less access to resources and face more barriers to economic self-sufficiency. Globally, women earn 23% less than their male counterparts and perform 2.6 times more domestic, unpaid labor. In addition, 43% of agricultural workers are women, but only 15% of land is female-owned. In Montana, a woman makes an average of 73 cents for every dollar a man makes. The wage gap is even bigger for Native women who make only 59.9 cents for every dollar a white, non-Hispanic male makes. The Covid-19 pandemic further exacerbated existing gender disparities as many women stayed home to care for family members. Because of that and the ongoing challenges to find childcare in the Flathead Valley, many women in our communities lost their income and continue to lack sufficient employment benefits, health insurance and medical care. Another contributing factor to food insecurity that has been on the rise since the beginning of the pandemic is gender-based violence. One in three women experiences abuse which leads to long-term physical and mental health effects connected to social and economic loss.

These and other causes drive women into food insecurity impacting their health and well-being. Food insecure women often skip meals or eat unhealthy, inexpensive food to ensure their children eat well. This raises women’s likelihood of stress, depression, diet-related diseases, and obesity. Food insecurity also significantly impacts maternal health and can cause pregnancy complications such as gestational diabetes, low iron and low birth weights. These are often contributing factors for children to grow up in a recurring cycle of poverty. Additionally, skipping meals and the inability to take paid parental leave can significantly decrease a mother‘s ability to breastfeed, which affects her and her child’s health. Finally, food insecurity impacts concentration and productivity at work which in turn contributes to further economic loss.

What can we do to break this cycle of inequality? Long-term changes have to be made on a structural, societal level. Policies have to support a fair share of domestic labor, secure housing, accessible, affordable childcare, equal job opportunities with sufficient benefits and fair wages, equal access to education and job opportunities in sectors such as agriculture. To make these changes happen, we need to increase female representation in government. Currently, only 32% of the Montana State Legislature are women.

Short-term, we at North Valley Food Bank do our best to promote public benefit programs such as SNAP and WIC and join collaborative advocacy efforts to improve these and other federal and state nutrition programs. In honor of women’s history month, I encourage you to do some additional research on how you can lift women out of poverty and support some of the incredible organizations addressing root causes of gender inequality in our communities, such as the Abbie Shelter, Housing Whitefish, Shelter Whitefish, the Nurturing Center, the Flathead Valley Breastfeeding Coalition, the Flathead Valley Community College Foundation and many more.

Sophie Albert is the executive director of North Valley Food Bank. Albert provides insights into happenings at the food bank, rural food insecurity, stories of the community and more in the monthly Whitefish Pilot column titled, In a Nutshell.