A Universal Basic Income would reduce prostitution levels — here is why…
85% of female sex workers enter the market due to their financial insecurity: they have no other option. In the current gig-economy,work is under-paid, unstable and often involves menial tasks, the kinds of tasks which can lead to severe cases of burn-out. The lack of work, or insufficiency of available work, forces women into sex work. They have no choice but to make a commodity of their body. Capitalism plays no small role in this.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a regular, unconditional payment which every individual receives. I, myself, am an eager supporter of UBI, preferring the term ‘social dividend’, alluding to the justified redistribution of the wealth that previous generations accumulated. UBI as compensation for the imbalance in capital ownership is also an angle which resonates with me.
UBI offers a basic, yet invaluable, level of financial stability. There is no question that UBI would disproportionately benefit women, posing as compensation for the problems they experience as a result of capitalism, with all of its necessary gender biases. Women make up between 85–90% of prostitutes. A back-of-an-envelope calculation would suggest that over 70% of prostitutes are women who engage in the work due to financial necessity.
Implementing a UBI would offer these women the financial security which would release them from ball and chain of indirectly forced prostitution. No longer would women, or men, be forced into sex work, an occupation which for those who have no other option, is likely to take a toll on their perception of self-worth as well as jeopardising family relations- the stigma associated with prostitution is undeniable.
Sex workers would finally be free from the financial ‘ball and chain’, finally granting them bodily autonomy.
The extent of the reduction in prostution levels is hard to discern. Sex work, in and of itself, should not be seen as something inherently wrong; sex workers who enter the market voluntarily, free from any financial pressures to do so, should be free to work in a safe, regulated environment. It could be possible that the financial liberation that a UBI would bring would allow sex workers who enjoy the occupation to be more selective in the work they take. UBI may not necessarily deem the market for sex dead, but healthier — workers now have the final say.
In the UK, a UBI is for many a pipe-dream… a policy viewed as utopian by the majority, ridiculed for its ideological stance. There was a time where the vote for women was also regarded in the same light.
The time for a UBI will come. Financial freedom is just a stone’s throw away.
