Siobhán has completed a series of 20 focus group sessions across Northern Ireland looking at the impact of the Cost of Living Crisis on women and has spoken to almost 250 women.

The focus groups discussed the impact of Cost of Living increases on women’s household budgets, on their ability to socialise, on their mental/physical health, on their children and what women feel would help them to cope with the increases.  In addition, each woman who took part completed a questionnaire which has given some further data around these issues.

There is very rich evidence resulting from both the focus groups and the questionnaires.  Much of it is extremely concerning around the scale and impact of this Crisis on women, children and communities.

Siobhán will shortly begin work on analysing the final results and compile these and relevant quotes from the women into a final research paper.  Due to the volume of evidence it is likely that the report will take a number of weeks to write and prepare but it is hoped that the final report will be published sometime in June 2023.