Access to employment and the labor market among women living homeless in Madrid,Spain

1 Introduction

Goal 1 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals aims to “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”. People living homeless represent one of the most extreme embodiments of the phenomena of poverty and social exclusion [1, 2]. Women are a particularly vulnerable group among people living homeless [3–5] because of characteristics, needs, and life trajectories which differ from those of their male counterparts [5].

Various studies have found that people living homeless have great difficulties in accessing employment and in keeping their jobs in the labor market [6–11]. A number of authors point out that these difficulties mainly stem from suffering from health problems (physical and/or mental), disability, substance abuse (drugs and/or alcohol), and/or problems with the justice system and criminal convictions [6, 11–17]. The difficulties of people living homeless when accessing the labor market have also been linked to other factors, including the high rate of prevalence of having had experiences of multiple and serious stressful life events at early ages. High level of geographic mobility is often experienced by this group. Engaging in begging, chronification of homelessness, and the stigmatization associated with homelessness [14, 18] are additional problematic factors. In addition, people living homeless have to cope with multiple barriers to access the labor market, including those related to personal circumstances such as low level of education and a lack of professional training, interview skills, work experience, and employment credentials. There are often difficulties in using information and communication technologies. There are problems related to poverty (e.g. transportation issues, lack of work-appropriate clothing, limitations in accessing mobile phones and other technologies, difficulties in opening a bank account) and barriers directly related to homelessness (e.g. lack of a postal address for receiving mail and notifications, living a nomadic lifestyle, stigmatization due to homelessness). Additional barriers are related to accessing job search services (e.g. complex bureaucracy of employment offices, lack of documentation). Many fear losing government benefits. Barriers are due to the mistrust that homeless people engender among employers [11, 14–16].

Despite the limiting factors, most people living homeless state that they have worked at various times throughout their lives [9] and express a desire to find a job [15, 19]. However, very few people living homeless are employed. The differences between countries are very significant, ranging between 2% –15% in European countries [20, 21], 20% in Japan [22], and over 40% in the United States or Latin America [23, 24]. People in homeless situations who work are generally underemployed in low-paying jobs that do not provide enough income to enable them to access independent housing [8, 11]. These very low-paying jobs are often held on a temporary and largely part-time basis, such as manual work in construction, the service sector (e.g. cleaning, hospitality), and agriculture.

Various studies have found the educational level of people living homeless is lower than that of the general population [e.g. 9, 21, 25], which contributes to their extreme difficulty in accessing the labor market [9, 25]. Although women living homeless tend to have a higher level of education than homeless men [26, 27], they have had more unstable and poorer quality jobs [22, 28]. Women tend to face greater difficulties gaining access to the labor market and keeping jobs [27]. Finding an adequately paid job is particularly difficult for women living homeless because they must deal with more barriers than their male counterparts [29–31]. This difficulty is particularly acute for women with little academic training, limited work experience, and a lack of job skills [31–33]. The lack of prior work experience of women living homeless appears to be a significant factor in successfully seeking employment because women with more work experience tend to find employment more easily [31, 34]. Women living homeless tend to have less work experience in formal employment than their male counterparts [19] and their work experiences largely consists of jobs that are unstable, informal, and poorly paid [34]. Furthermore, women living in a homeless situation have to fight to a greater extent against the stigma associated with living homeless, particularly when they do not have sufficient access to economic resources to wash and dress as socially required [35, 36].

Even when women living homeless succeed in finding a job, it tends not to be stable [37]. When they have jobs, these women continue to have financial difficulties [31] leading to a large percentage returning to social assistance [37]. Tam et al. [8] report that women in homeless situations have much closer links to the social services than men, but nevertheless, women have more difficulties in finding employment.

In the opinion of Eyrich-Garg [38], the use of information communication technology (ICT) is an important factor for inclusion-exclusion from employment in the knowledge-based society. The difficulties experienced by people living homeless in accessing ICTs, in combination with other circumstances, hinders their social inclusion processes [39]. Calvo and Carbonell [40] point out that the use of social networks (SNS) on the internet by people in a homeless situation can contribute to improved social skills, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and life satisfaction; but these authors emphasize that interventions consisting exclusively of job training involving ICTs can be counterproductive for homeless people.

A widespread stereotype is homeless people do not have access to ICTs and they lack the skills to use them properly when they are able to access them [38]. According to Vázquez et al. [39], although use of ICTs has penetrated among people living homeless in Spain, the percentage of people with access to these technologies is much lower than among the general population. Vázquez et al. [39] observed a relatively widespread use of mobile phones (59%) and a medium-low level of use of computers (40%) and email (33%) among people in a homeless situation in Madrid, albeit with major differences depending on age, level of education, and nationality of the interviewees. The digital divide has an especially negative effect on elderly homeless people with lower levels of education and of Spanish origin [39].

The links between women living homeless and employment in the labor market in Spain are understudied. This study aims to examine the work life of homeless women in Madrid, their employment situations, their sources for obtaining income, and their reasons for not having formal employment. We will help to identify the distinguishing characteristics of the women who are living in a homeless situation and seeking work.

2 Method

The research was conducted in Madrid, Spain based on data provided by women living homeless (n = 136). The sample size was determined by using a classical sample size formula, including information on the population size, confidence level, population variance, and sampling error. According to the homeless people count, there were around 400 homeless women in Madrid, so our sample represents approximately 34% of women living homeless in Madrid. All the participants were adults who had spent the night before the interview in a shelter or other facility for people living homeless, in the street, or other places not suitable for sleeping (e.g. abandoned buildings, basements). The main characteristics of the participants are shown in Table 1:

The women interviewed were an average age of over 45 years and most were of Spanish nationality. Most spent nights in shelters. The women were mainly single, separated, or divorced, and more than half of them had had children at an average age of 22 years old. Twenty-one per cent of the interviewees had not completed primary education; however, 18% reported having completed university education. Taking all the episodes into account, the women interviewed had spent an average time homeless of around six years. Forty-one per cent of the interviewees reported being in good or very good health but more than half of the women suffered from a diagnosed serious or chronic disease, and a third of those who had been interviewed had a disability.

The women interviewed were recruited during 2014 in shelters, drop-in centers for people living homeless, and the streets and public spaces. The objectives of the research and the processing that the data would receive were explained to each woman after she had been contacted. The participants were asked for informed consent to participate in the research. In view of the results obtained in previous studies [21, 41], it was anticipated that a relatively high proportion of the interviewees could have a low level of education, and it was expected that some foreign women living homeless in Madrid could potentially have difficulties understanding the Spanish language. A structured interview was used to gather information to circumvent the possible problems arising from the interviewees’ difficulties with reading and/or understanding. The structured interview was a version with a gender perspective of an instrument used in previous studies [42] adapted to the fact that the interviewees were women. The interviews lasted between 45 and 80 minutes. Interviews were conducted by four interviewers (2 women and 2 men) who had been previously trained to conduct structured interviews and in dealing with people in situations of social exclusion. In order to ensure confidentiality and anonymity, the interviews were conducted in private places: offices lent by the shelters, places away from crowds in the street, bedrooms, etc.

The database was developed and processed using the SPSS statistical analysis and data management system. When making comparisons, the Chi square (χ2) statistic was used for the nominal variables, and the Student-t test for independent samples was used for the continuous variables. The effect sizes were also calculated using Cohen’s d for quantitative variables and the Phi coefficient (φ) for nominal variables.

Among the interviewed women living homeless in Madrid, 93.4% (127) reported having worked at some time in their lives. Taking into account all the jobs they had held, 71.3% (97) reported having been formally employed at some point in their lives (i.e. with a contract or self-employed). The women had worked in some type of job for an average of 151.72 months (SD = 132.468), the equivalent of 12.6 years, and they worked in formal employment for an average of 82.41 months (SD = 109.845), the equivalent of 6.9 years. Reports by the women interviewed indicated that 43.4% (59) had participated in begging, 19.3% (26) had engaged in prostitution, 28.4% (38) had carried out criminal activities, and 14.8% (20) had been involved in marginal activities (e.g. selling paper tissues, collecting cardboard and cans, parking cars, collecting products from refuse). During the month prior to the interview, 9.6% (13) of the interviewees reported having done some type of either formal or informal work. During the month prior to the interview, 19.9% (27) reported having participated in begging, 4.5% (6) had carried out criminal activities, 3.0% (4) had engaged in prostitution, and 2.2% (3) had been involved in other marginal economic activities.

When asked about the reasons why they did not have a formal job at the time of the interview, 32.3% (41) of the interviewees attributed it to physical health problems, 22.8% (29) to the general employment situation in the country, 15.0% (19) to being too old to work, 13.4% (17) to the economic crisis that affected Spain, 8.7% (11) to mental health problems, 6.3% (8) to not wanting to work, 5.5% (7) to lack of training, 4.8% (6) to the migratory process and lack of a work permit, 4.8% (6) to consumption of psychoactive substances, 3.9% (5) to housing difficulties, 2.4% (3) to personal problems, and 0.8% (1) to having to take care of family.

Among women interviewed, 41.9% (54) stated that they had sought employment during the week prior to the interview. Some of the distinguishing characteristics of the women who had looked for a job and those who had not are listed in Table 2.

As can be seen in Table 2, the women living homeless who had sought employment in the week prior to the interview had a lower average age, had spent less time without being formally employed (on average 4.4 years vs. 11.2 years), and had spent less time living homeless (on average 3.6 years vs. 8.2 years). Around half of the women who had sought employment in the week before the interview took place were of foreign nationality, while more than 80% of those who had not sought employment had Spanish nationality. Among those interviewed, 68.4% (26) of foreign women sought employment in the week prior to the interview compared to 30.2% (26) of Spanish women. There are no statistically significant differences between women who tried to find a job and those who did not in terms of academic background, the place where they spent the night (street, hostel, an unsuitable place for sleeping), having a partner, children or other relatives, having engaged in begging in the month before the interview, the amount of time worked during their life when considering all jobs, or the amount of time spent working with an employment contract or on a self-employed basis. A small percentage of the women who attempted to seek employment received some kind of stable government benefit. A large percentage of the women had mobile phones and used computers on the internet.

Among the interviewees who had looked for work, 71.1% (28) said that they were in good or very good general health as compared to 59.6% (23) of those who had not looked for a job. Additionally, 13.2% (7) of the interviewees who had looked for work said they were in poor or very poor health as compared to 36.5% (28) who had not sought work. A third of the interviewees who had looked for a job reported having a medically diagnosed serious or chronic illness as compared to two thirds of those who had not sought work. No statistically significant differences were observed between those seeking work or not seeking work relative to having a disability (recognised or otherwise). No statistically significant differences were noted between those seeking work or not seeking work relative to regularly consuming alcohol or drugs during the month prior to the interview.

The majority (93%) of women living homeless in Madrid who we interviewed had some links to the employment and labor market at some time during their lifetime, and for relatively long periods of time, exceeding 12 years on average. A significant percentage of the women (71%) reported having been formally employed, although for an average of 7 years, around half the average time they said they had been working. At some time during their lives, many of the interviewees had worked in low-paid formal employment or in the “informal economy”, both of which generally provides only limited income. The realities of this type of situation when combined with limited access to government benefits can help to explain why a significant percentage of the women resorted to begging, criminal activities (e.g. drug dealing, theft), prostitution, or marginal activities (e.g. selling paper tissues, collecting cardboard and cans, collecting material from refuse). The need to resort to these activities to access financial resources place women in a particularly vulnerable situation. Activities of this type tend to lead to problems with the police and the criminal justice system, and social rejection. Access to government benefits (e.g. unemployment benefits, disability pension, retirement pension) becomes difficult, if not impossible. No verifiable work experience hinders training opportunities, limits career advancement and upward social mobility, provides irregular and insecure income, and makes it difficult to access financial products (e.g. mortgage loans and bank accounts). These factors make access to independent housing and maintenance of economic stability difficult.

Only a small percentage of the women interviewed were doing any type of work (either formal or informal) at the time of the interview. As is common among people living homeless in various cultural contexts [2, 22], the few working interviewees in Madrid were mostly underemployed in unstable, temporary, part-time, low-paid jobs. These jobs were generally informal and unregulated (i.e. cleaning private homes, caring for children or elderly persons, distributing advertising, conducting surveys, selling merchandise in the street, and other work). Various studies have shown that women living homeless need to overcome more barriers than their male counterparts to access employment [29–31]. Unfortunately for women living homeless, finding a properly paid job that enables access to independent housing is extremely difficult. This is especially challenging if the woman lacks academic training, has little work experience, and has not developed job skills [31, 32].

At the time of the interview one in five women was engaged in begging, and a small percentage were involved in illegal or criminal activities (drug dealing, theft, etc.), prostitution, or carried out marginal activities (selling paper tissues, parking cars, collecting cardboard and cans, etc.). Ferguson et al. [14] suggest obtaining income by means of activities of this type has a negative impact on the probability of obtaining a job. This type of activity distances women from the formal labor market and pushes them towards marginalization. Meanwhile, they are being deprived of the rights and advantages inherent in employment (e.g. various social security benefits), as well as the security of a sufficient stable income to enable access to independent housing.

A significant percentage of women living homeless in Madrid wanted to work, as was also observed in other countries [e.g. 15, 16, 19, 22]. When the interview took place, 42% of the interviewees said that they were looking for work. These women were mainly those who were younger, in better health, had been unemployed for less time, and had spent less time living homeless. The younger interviewees with better health and who had spent less time unemployed appear to believe they have more likelihood of accessing the labor market, which is an important motivation when seeking employment. The foreign interviewees also have a greater tendency to look for employment; however, unfortunately, the homeless women of foreign origin may find it particularly difficult to access formal employment due to administrative and cultural reasons. Vázquez, García-Pérez, and Panadero [43] point out that immigrant women living homeless in Madrid tend to present with better levels of health, lower levels of alcohol and drug consumption, higher levels of education, and less time spent homeless than non-immigrants. These factors play an important role in actively seeking work, especially when seeking work is part of a plan for migration. Additionally, Vázquez et al. [43] note that immigrant women living homeless had greater difficulties accessing government benefits, which would have a negative impact on their economic situation and encourage them to seek employment. A small percentage of the women interviewed who were looking for a job received a stable government benefit (Minimum Insertion Income, Non-Contributory Retirement Pension, Disability Pension, Contributory Retirement Pension, Unemployment Benefit, Widow’s Pension, and other government benefits). Women without regular income from the government would be in greater need of financial resources, which could encourage a search for employment. On the other hand, women with regular government benefits would be likely to lose the government support if they obtained formal employment. This is usually an exchange of leaving reliably stable income for an unstable income from a precarious and low-paid job, because receiving government benefits is often incompatible with employment. A person attempting to obtain government benefits after voluntarily leaving employment may encounter extremely slow administrative procedures with uncertain results. Many women living homeless avoid giving up the regular - albeit limited - income that government benefits provide. Instead they generally engage in work that is precarious, low-paid, and to a large extent insecure and temporary.

The women who reported looking for work ac-cessed ITCs more often than those who were not seeking employment. Only half had a mobile phone. More than two thirds reported having access to the internet. Although access to ITCs could be useful when seeking employment, Calvo and Carbonell [40] point out that specific web-based job search tools do not in isolation substantially improve access to the labor market among groups in difficulty or experiencing social exclusion. These authors stress that interventions consisting exclusively of training by means of ITCs could even be counterproductive for homeless people. However, the improvement of social networks through the use of ICTs and the use of specific websites to seek employment leads to a major increase in employment opportunities [40].

The interviewed women who were not working largely attributed their unemployment to personal characteristics or dispositional factors beyond their control (e.g. physical and/or mental health problems, old age) or to situational factors beyond their control (e.g. the general employment situation, economic crisis). These women attributed their unemployment to circumstances perceived as being beyond their control, to a large extent, this could have a negative impact on the implementation of strategies aimed at improving employment situations [10, 42]. Only a small percentage of the interviewees attributed their unemployment to a lack of training. Of interest, 5% of those interviewed attributed their difficulties in accessing the labor market to psychoactive substance abuse. Ferguson et al. [14] point out that women with addiction problems are less likely to access employment and more likely to work in very low-income jobs [11]. A relatively small percentage of those interviewed (6%) attributed not having a job to not wanting to work.

The limitations of this study include the fact that the criteria for sample inclusion in the research were restrictive (participants spent the night before the interview in a shelter or other facility for people living homeless, in the street, or other places not suitable for sleeping), and there was no randomized or stratified selection of the women interviewed. Furthermore, this research has no comparison group of women who are not homeless or of homeless men. Also, this is a cross-sectional study design, and caution must therefore be exercised when trying to establish causal relationships. Future studies should include longitudinal information and comparison groups. Also future studies should consider transgender experiences and gender differences through a non-binary paradigm. Although the work was carried out in Madrid, results could be generalized to other contexts due to the multiple similarities in characteristics and needs between people living homeless throughout different international contexts [44, 45].

5 Conclusions

The results of this study indicate that despite largely having worked throughout their lives, women in a homeless situation have major difficulties in accessing the employment and labor market. Regularly engaging in precarious, informal, or socially marginal activities distance women living in homeless situations from the formal labor market. These types of activities push the women towards marginalization and deprive them of the rights and advantages inherent in employment. In general, women in a homeless situation tend to attribute the difficulties in accessing the labor market to their own personal characteristics or situational factors that are beyond their control. Although many of the women living in homeless situations want to work, few of them do so, and a substantial number are seeking employment.