Behind the Iron Lady: How Thatcherism Hurt Working-Class Women Most

Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister (1979–1990) is often remembered as a period of radical economic transformation. Her government’s embrace of neoliberalism; privatisation, deregulation, and a systematic dismantling of social safety nets, fundamentally reshaped Britain. While much has been written about the impact of Thatcherism on the working class as a whole, the specific ways in which her policies disproportionately harmed working-class women are often overlooked.

Thatcher’s economic reforms decimated industries where women were already structurally disadvantaged, gutted public services that many working-class women relied on, and reinforced economic inequality in ways that continue to shape gender disparities today. 

Austerity and the Collapse of Women’s Employment

Thatcher may have broken the glass ceiling, but she had little interest in holding the door open. She actively distanced herself from the women’s liberation movement and refused to identify with feminism, famously stating she owed nothing to women’s lib. Her premiership offered a veneer of progress while reinforcing deeply conservative ideas about women’s roles. For most women, especially the working class, her leadership meant austerity, not advancement

One of the defining features of Thatcherism was the rapid deindustrialisation of Britain. The closure of coal mines, steelworks, and manufacturing plants led to mass unemployment in working-class communities. While the male-dominated nature of these industries meant that men were the most visibly affected, the economic shockwaves also devastated women.

In mining communities, women often worked in supporting industries, factories, textiles, food production  or in the informal economy. The collapse of these local economies eliminated thousands of jobs that had sustained working-class women. Additionally, in communities where men were suddenly unemployed, many women were forced to take on additional low-paid work to keep their households afloat. The burden of economic instability fell disproportionately on them, as they were expected to stretch already thin resources, support their families, and pick up the pieces of Thatcher’s economic destruction.

Public sector cuts under Thatcher further worsened the situation. Many women found employment in local government, social services, and healthcare, sectors that saw significant funding reductions throughout the 1980s. As a result, thousands of working-class women lost their jobs as councils and hospitals faced funding crises. In 1980 alone, public spending cuts led to 7% of local government jobs being slashed, with women making up the majority of the redundancies. 

While economic indicators captured job losses and benefit cuts, they didn’t reflect the growing psychological toll. As state-funded support networks disappeared, many women faced increased isolation, anxiety, and depression, especially those balancing multiple caring roles under mounting financial pressure. With community hubs shuttered and mental health services slashed, working-class women were left to cope alone with the emotional fallout of austerity.

Single Mothers and the Assault on Welfare

Thatcher’s government was openly hostile to welfare dependency, promoting the idea that reliance on state support was a moral failure rather than a symptom of structural inequality. Nowhere was this more keenly felt than among single mothers.

In the 1980s, single mothers were frequently vilified in the media, often portrayed as scroungers draining the state’s resources. Tabloid headlines painted single mothers and benefit claimants as parasitic burdens on the state, feeding the narrative that poverty was a personal failing rather than a structural issue. Papers like The Sun and The Daily Mail reinforced Thatcher’s moral crusade against ‘dependency,’ fuelling public hostility towards working-class women and paving the way for punitive welfare reforms with widespread popular support. The cuts to benefits and social housing disproportionately affected the single mothers, making it harder to afford childcare, secure stable housing, or find employment that paid enough to sustain a household. In 1986, housing benefit reforms introduced stricter eligibility criteria, forcing many single mothers into substandard accommodation or precarious living situations. 

The Social Security Act 1986 fundamentally reshaped benefits, cutting support for lone parents and shifting responsibility away from the state. The lack of investment in affordable childcare meant that many single mothers were effectively locked out of the workforce, further entrenching cycles of poverty. With minimal support available, working-class women were often left with impossible choices, work multiple low-paid jobs while struggling to pay for childcare, or rely on dwindling benefits and risk the stigma attached to being a ‘burden’ on the state.

The Dismantling of Trade Unions and Women’s Labour Rights

One of Thatcher’s most lasting legacies was the destruction of trade unions. While the 1984–85 Miners’ Strike is the most famous example, Thatcher’s war on organised labour affected many industries where women were a significant part of the workforce.

Trade unions had historically played a crucial role in advocating for better wages and working conditions for women, particularly in low-paid sectors such as retail, textiles, and cleaning. As union power was eroded through restrictive legislation and mass unemployment, women lost one of their few protections against exploitation in the workplace. The result was a rise in insecure, part-time, and casualised labour,  jobs that overwhelmingly went to women and offered little in the way of financial stability or workers’ rights. By 1990, over 50% of employed women were in part-time work, compared to just 8% of men.

The erosion of collective bargaining power meant that industries traditionally dominated by women, such as nursing, teaching, and clerical work, saw wages stagnate while workloads increased. This restructuring of the workforce entrenched gendered economic inequalities that persist to this day.

Privatisation and the Burden of Unpaid Labour

Thatcher’s privatisation agenda extended beyond industries. It also reshaped the welfare state. The reduction of state responsibility for key social services placed a heavier burden on women, who were often expected to fill the gaps left by the retreating public sector.

The privatisation of utilities such as water, gas, and electricity led to increased household costs, disproportionately affecting women who were more likely to manage household budgets. Between 1985 and 1990, household energy bills rose by an average of 25%, disproportionately impacting low-income households. The selling-off of council housing under the Right to Buy scheme may have benefited some, but it also depleted the availability of affordable housing, pushing many women into precarious living situations.

Similarly, cuts to the NHS and social care services meant that more women were expected to take on unpaid caring roles. Whether it was looking after children, elderly relatives, or disabled family members, the burden of care work, already undervalued, became even heavier as the state abandoned its responsibilities. Research from the Women’s Budget Group has shown that women provided an estimated £77 billion worth of unpaid care annually during the 1980s, a figure that only increased as public services were stripped away. In the face of a shrinking welfare state, women turned to each other. Across Britain, informal networks sprang up, church-run food banks, community childcare swaps, mutual aid organised by mothers and neighbours. These grassroots acts of solidarity offered essential lifelines, but they also highlighted the depth of the state’s retreat. Women were expected to fill the gaps not just in their own homes, but in entire communities.

The housing crisis sparked by Right to Buy policies had particularly brutal consequences for women escaping domestic abuse. As council housing stock dwindled and rents rose, access to safe, affordable accommodation became increasingly difficult. Many women were forced to remain in dangerous relationships due to a lack of housing options, while underfunded refuges struggled to meet rising demand. Thatcher’s housing legacy did not offer liberation—it trapped many women in cycles of danger and precarity.

Not Just Class

While working-class women as a group were deeply harmed by Thatcherism, the experiences of Black, Asian, migrant, and disabled women reveal how multiple layers of discrimination shaped their hardships.

Black British women, already facing employment discrimination, were often the first to be made redundant during public sector cuts. Migrant women were disproportionately impacted by both benefit cuts and hostile immigration policies that restricted access to support. Disabled women faced a double bind – as benefits and social care services were slashed, their ability to live independently or participate in the workforce became even more limited. Austerity was never a neutral force. It punished most harshly those who were already marginalised.

Women Who Fought Back

Despite the enormous challenges of the Thatcher years, women were not passive victims. Many organised, resisted, and supported one another through grassroots movements. One of the most powerful examples was Women Against Pit Closures, a movement that emerged during the 1984–85 miners’ strike. These women organised food banks, pickets, protests, and community support groups, often in the face of police intimidation and media hostility.

Their work was not only practical but deeply political, challenging both Thatcherism and traditional gender roles. It revealed the emotional and material labour women provided in sustaining working-class resistance, and their commitment to building alternative networks of care and solidarity outside of a collapsing state.

Women and the Political Legacy of Thatcherism

Despite being Britain’s first female Prime Minister, Thatcher was no champion of women’s rights. She famously distanced herself from feminism, once declaring, “I owe nothing to women’s lib.” Her policies reflected this stance, while some middle-class and wealthy women may have benefited from her economic policies, working-class women were disproportionately harmed.

The rise of ‘Thatcher’s children’ - a generation raised under the harsh realities of austerity, meant that many young women grew up in households struggling with economic instability, benefit cuts, and the long-term consequences of public sector underfunding. These conditions shaped attitudes towards work, welfare, and political engagement for decades to come.

The legacy of Thatcherism also cast a long shadow over future governments. The austerity programme introduced by David Cameron and George Osborne after 2010 bore a striking resemblance to the policies of the 1980s, cuts to public services, attacks on welfare, and rising inequality. Once again, it was low-income women who bore the brunt of the economic pain.

Reckoning with Thatcher’s Gendered Legacy

The legacy of Thatcherism didn’t end when she left Downing Street. The daughters of Thatcher’s Britain inherited a world of diminished opportunity. Girls growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s were more likely to live in poverty, less likely to access higher education, and more exposed to unstable, low-paid work. The intergenerational scars of austerity are still visible in today’s gender pay gap, in the childcare crisis, and in the continued feminisation of poverty.

The devastation wrought by Thatcher’s economic policies is often discussed in broad terms, job losses, industrial decline, the rise of neoliberalism, but the gendered impact remains underexamined. The erasure of working-class women’s struggles from mainstream narratives of the 1980s reflects a broader tendency to overlook the intersections of class, race, gender, and disability in political history.

Thatcherism did not just hurt the working class. It specifically disadvantaged working-class women by dismantling their access to stable employment, social security, and labour protections. The consequences of these policies did not disappear when she left office. They laid the groundwork for decades of austerity policies that continue to disproportionately impact women today.

As Britain continues to grapple with the legacies of Thatcherism, recognising its gendered impact is crucial. Economic policies are never neutral. They shape and are shaped by existing inequalities. If we are to understand the full extent of Thatcher’s impact, we must remember the women who were left behind – forced to carry the weight of policies designed without them in mind.