Using European Social Survey data, this article studies the prevalence of objective and subjective poverty among older women and men (60+ years) in 21 European countries. Objective poverty refers to whether one’s disposable income falls below the poverty line, whereas subjective poverty relates to the capacity to make ends meet. It analyzes gender differences in these two dimensions of poverty and the role of gender as an explanation to these phenomena while controlling for other individual-level variables as well as the role of welfare state regimes. The results show that older women are more exposed to objective poverty than men, and that female gender remains strongly and positively correlated with this kind of poverty even when controlling for other variables. They also show that other individual-level variables, such as partnership, paid work and education curbs objective poverty, while the type of welfare regime does not matter. As to subjective poverty, on the other hand, there is no significant association with female gender, nor with the type of welfare regime, while individual-level variables such as subjective health, partnership and paid work are negatively correlated with this dimension of poverty. Subjective poverty is somewhat more influenced by contextual factors than objective poverty although the type of welfare state regime is not significantly associated with subjective or objective poverty.

本文利用欧洲社会调查数据，研究了 21 个欧洲国家老年女性和男性（60 岁以上）客观和主观贫困的患病率。客观贫困是指一个人的可支配收入是否低于贫困线，而主观贫困则与维持收支平衡的能力有关。它分析了贫困这两个维度的性别差异以及性别的作用，作为对这些现象的解释，同时控制其他个人层面的变量以及福利国家政权的作用。结果表明，老年女性比男性更容易遭受客观贫困，而且即使在控制其他变量的情况下，女性性别仍然与这种贫困呈强烈的正相关关系。他们还表明，其他个人层面的变量，例如伙伴关系、有偿工作和教育，可以抑制客观贫困，而福利制度的类型并不重要。另一方面，主观贫困与女性性别和福利制度类型没有显着关联，而主观健康、伙伴关系和有偿工作等个人层面的变量与这一维度的贫困呈负相关。尽管福利国家制度的类型与主观或客观贫困没有显着相关，但主观贫困比客观贫困更多地受到背景因素的影响。