Finishing up George Orwell's memoir Down and Out in Paris and London I came across an insightful passage that touches on the gender gap in the lower classes of society, here's an excerpt :

Tramps are cut off from women, in the first place, because there are very few women at their level of society. One might imagine that among destitute people the sexes would be as equally balanced as elsewhere. But it is not so; in fact, one can almost say that below a certain level society is entirely male.

The following figures, published by the LCC from a night census taken on February 13th, 1931, will show the relative numbers of destitute men and destitute women :

Spending the night in the streets, 60 men, 18 women.

In shelters and homes not licensed as common lodging-houses,

1,057 men, 137 women.

In the crypt of St Martin's-in-the-Fields Church, 88 men, 12 women.

In LCC casual wards and hostels, 674 men, 15 women.

It will be seen from these figures that at the charity-level men outnumber women by something like ten to one. The cause is presumably that unemployment affects women less than men; also that any presentable woman can, in the last resort, attach herself to some man. The result, for a tramp, is that he is condemned to perpetual celibacy. For of course it goes without saying that if a tramp finds no women at his own level, those above even a very little above-are as far out of his reach as the moon.