Brown envelope for a fairer welfare system

NEXT month the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) will launch its brown envelope campaign as part of its national social welfare reform strategy, which places demands on the Government to reform the social welfare system.

The system, which is based on a ‘male breadwinner’ model, reinforces the notion of women as adult dependents, rather than as individuals entitled to payments in their own right.

The system fails to give adequate recognition to women’s unpaid caring work. The consequences of this failure are the higher-than-average risks of poverty experienced by certain categories of women who are, or have been, engaged in caring work for long periods of time, especially lone parents and older women.