WOMEN have borne the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis and the Scottish government must produce a Budget for them to fight it, the STUC said at the weekend.

The call came as hundreds of female trade unionists from across Scotland descended on Glasgow for the STUC Women’s Conference, at which the effects of the crisis in the workplace and beyond are expected to dominate discussions.

The conference will hear how rocketing prices and long-term cuts in real wages have affected women more than men because they tend to be on lower wages than their male counterparts and because there is a link between income and partner abuse.

The latest Destitution UK report by poverty research charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation show that 72 per cent of workers on the real living wage are women.

Scottish Women’s Aid recently told a Holyrood committee that 14.3 per cent of women living in households with earning of less than £10,000 had experienced partner abuse — more than four times the rate for those with a household income of £50,000 or more. 

As the conference gets under way, Andrea Bradley, who chairs the STUC women’s committee and is also general secretary of teaching union, the Educational Insistute of Scotland, called for a Budget for women aimed at countering the financial tactics of coercive control long used by abusive partners and ex-partners, such as refusing to pay child maintenance, restricting women from working or taking out loans in their name.

She argued that such abuses have become even more damaging during the cost-of-living crisis, which she called “nothing short of a scandal in terms of its impact on working people.

“But along with all the other hardships that poverty brings, for women, it means a higher risk of domestic abuse,” Ms Bradley added.

“The fact that destitution has risen less quickly in Scotland is no cause for celebration.

“It does however show that action from the Scottish government can make a difference.”

She called for urgent measures to ensure “fair pay, universal free school meals for all young people, further mitigation of the heinous two-child benefit cap, increased provision of free early education and childcare and an increase in funding for domestic abuse support organisations.

“Only then will we begin to see real progress towards the gender equality that women in Scotland seek,” Ms Bradley said.

A Scottish government spokesperson said: “Scottish ministers are concerned about the additional hardship women and children are facing as a result of the cost of living crisis.

“Almost £3 billion in this financial year has been allocated to help mitigate the increased cost of living in Scotland.

“The Scottish government has also demonstrated its strong commitment to supporting women through a number of measures – including accelerating the expansion of funded childcare and the most generous universal free school meal offer in the UK.”