Poverty in Focus - Gender Equality

As with overall equity concerns, gender equality is important for both intrinsic and instrumental reasons. It has a bearing on family harmony and on wellbeing in many dimensions. It involves policy-making with respect to society as a whole, i.a. education, labour and financial markets, economic and political empowerment, institutions, and economic growth.

The prospects for achieving the Millennium Development Goals are both directly and indirectly improved by enhancing gender equity. Thus, there are close links between the reduction of both gender inequalities and multidimensional poverty. The empirical evidence suggests that developing countries with less gender inequality tend to have lower poverty rates.

Gender inequality represents an untapped source for stimulating economic growth and promoting social development. This is particularly true in the developing world, where women are often systematically deprived from having equal access to social services as well as to physical and social capital. Hence, empowering women by improving their living conditions and enabling them to actively participate in the social and economic life of a country may well be the key for long-term sustainable development.

This issue of Poverty in Focus highlights the importance of improving gender equity for pro-poor growth and improved wellbeing of poor families, with references to recent research literature and sharing of important and policy-relevant results.

Naila Kabeer leads with a summary of current knowledge about the relation between gender, labour markets and poverty, explaining why there are no easy generalisations about the poverty implications of women’s paid work.

Gita Sen approaches poverty as a gendered experience that has to be addressed with due consideration to its various impacts, responses and policy implications.

Joana Costa and Elydia Silva underline the burdens of gender inequalities for society as a whole and show how paid work by women reduces overall poverty and inequality.

Denis Drechsler, Johannes Jütting and Carina Lindberg focus on the links between gender, institutions and development; better data can help improve policy analysis.

James Heintz considers the ‘feminisation of labour’ that sees women concentrated in lower quality, more precarious forms of paid work, increasing household vulnerability.

Ruth Alsop and Paul Healey find that gender inequality is a major barrier to economic growth and poverty reduction, calling for bold policy action to challenge social institutions.

Andrew Morrison, Dhushyanth Raju and Nistha Sinha summarise a World Bank study showing a robust relationship between gender inequality and poverty; poor women’s paid work plays a key role in getting their families out of poverty.

John Sender presents data indicating that when women in rural Mozambique have greater autonomy, daughters are less likely to be neglected; rural wages provide an escape route from poverty for a new generation of women.

Ranjula Bali Swain and Fan Yang Wallentin use evidence from India that microfinance may lead to increased empowerment, self-confidence, respect and esteem for women.

Irene K B Mutalima reports on the experience of microfinance in Africa and warns that gender concerns often take a secondary role to the financial sustainability of the credit instititutions.

Marcelo Medeiros and Joana Costa examine the claims of a ‘feminisation of poverty’ making the distinction between static levels and dynamic change, and argue that current poverty measure underestimate the real levels of women’s poverty.

Sylvia Chant also finds that the scant data on intra-household inequalities prevent certain knowledge about the ‘feminisation of poverty’ and that the focus should be on women’s privation beyond incomes.

This collection of articles should contribute to a better understanding of the importance of recognising the crucial role of gender inequalities as barriers to economic and social development, and thus of undertaking policy and institutional reforms that will more effectively reduce poverty and social injustice.