London ? As Britain prepares for the deepest budget cuts in generations to tackle a crippling mound of public debt, the government is facing a pressing legal question: Is its austerity plan sexist?

Like other wealthy nations including the United States, Britain ran up an unprecedented deficit in recent years — a liability that ballooned with a $39 billion stimulus package unleashed against the Great Recession. Now, the new government headed by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron is making a round of spending cuts that not only roll back that stimulus but also hit at the heart of Britain’s social safety net and big government machine.

Women, recent studies here show, are far more dependent on the state than men. Women are thus set to bear a disproportionate amount of the pain, prompting a legal challenge that could scuttle the government’s fiscal crusade and raise fairness questions over deficit-cutting campaigns under way from Greece to Spain, and in the United States when it eventually moves to curb spending.

One major target in Britain, for instance, is the bloated public sector, with as many as 600,000 government jobs — or one in 10 — potentially on the chopping block. But 65 percent of state employees are women, including single mothers in part-time job programs, setting them up to suffer more than men.

Overall, a report published by the House of Commons indicates, women stand to bear the burden of 72 percent of the government’s cuts.

The government insists it considered social costs in the budget that George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or treasury secretary, has described as unavoidable but also “fair and progressive.” The treasury, however, has been less clear about whether it specifically studied the impact on women or minorities, and declined a request to be interviewed on the subject, citing the pending legal case.

The report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies prompted Deputy Prime Minister Nicholas Clegg to pen a passionate rebuttal in the Financial Times. Critics of the budget, he said, have ignored the government’s increase in capital gains taxes on the rich, as well as growth-boosting measures aimed at weaning Britons off state aid and putting them back to work.

The new government is also taking aim at state funds for charities, which critics say serve as a vital lifeline for millions of women. Yvonne Traynor, chief executive of the Croydon Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Center in south London, said a “panic” has set in as cuts are set to eliminate about 40 percent of the center’s $460,000 annual budget.

“We’ve struggled for 10 years to build a center that helps women face the trauma in their lives, and now they are trying to claw it back,” she said. “Women are often the poorest people in society, with fewer options in their lives. When you cut back like this, they are going to suffer most.”