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Scottish Women’s Survey 2025 finds increasing financial pressures on disabled women

  • Area of Work: Policy and Research
  • Type: News Item
  • Published: 9th October 2025

70% of disabled women reported feeling worse off financially compared to last year.

The Scottish Women’s Budget Group (SWBG) have published a briefing on the financial findings of their fourth annual Women’s Survey. This annual survey offers an opportunity for women in Scotland to share their views on public spending and how it affects their lives. This year, the survey focussed on three key topics:

  • Fresh food and health
  • Women’s financial situation
  • Council Tax

This briefing presents the findings in relation to women’s financial situation, with 66% of the women who responded feeling worse off than this time last year. That figure was notably higher for some groups of women, including 70% for disabled women and 82% for minority ethnic women. Disabled women were particularly impacted by rising food costs, with 81% saying this had contributed to their feeling worse off, and increases in energy bills, with 62% saying this was a factor.

The survey also asked about strategies to manage these increased costs, all of which disabled women were more likely to have implemented than the overall figures. This included cutting back on food expenditure (63% versus 57%), not replacing clothing or shoes (46% vs 38%), and not putting the heating on (59% vs 51%).

In their analysis of the findings, SWBG note that the results of this year’s survey continue and reinforce trends in previous years, showing that women “continue to be disproportionately affected by rising costs due to pre-existing inequalities and the impact of caring responsibilities.” The briefing also offers several recommendations for each level of government to address these issues, including:

  • For the UK Government to increase the basic rate of Universal Credit, end the five week wait for it, scrap the two-child limit policy and the benefit cap, and increase the Carer’s Allowance and widen access to it.
  • For the Scottish Government to urgently increase funding to support social care, whilst abolishing non-residential care charges.
  • For Local Government to ensure that budget decision making is informed by quality gender analysis.

You can read the full “Women’s Survey 2025: Women’s Finances Briefing” on the SWBG website.

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