Document(s) 7 of 13

Poverty is generally thought of in terms of deprivation, either in relation to some basic minimum needs or in relation to the resources necessary to meet these minimum basic needs. Although there are varying ideas about what this basic level consists of, the three dominant approaches to poverty analysis that have featured in the development literature are:

1. the poverty line approach, which measures the economic ‘means’ that households and individuals have to meet their basic needs (determined by their income);
2. the capabilities approach, which explores a broader range of means (endowments and entitlements) as well as ends (‘functioning achievements’); and
3. participatory poverty assessments (PPA), which explore the causes and outcomes of poverty in more context-specific ways.

Each approach reveals something about the gender dimensions of poverty, the forms these take in different regions and how they might be affected by economic growth.

The Poverty Line Approach

Separating the poor from the non-poor

Poverty line measurements equate well-being with the satisfaction individuals achieve through the consumption of various goods and services. They focus on the ability – shown by income – to ‘choose’ between different ‘bundles’ of commodities. This led to:

(a) a focus on growth in national per capita income as the yardstick for measuring development at the macro-level; and

(b) a focus on increases in per capita household income as the yardstick of prosperity at the micro-level.

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It has become clear that economic growth does not necessarily benefit poorer sections of society.

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Since it has become clear that economic growth does not necessarily benefit poorer sections of society, a concern with poverty reduction has become increasingly important as a measure of development. In order to establish whether or not poverty is being reduced, there has to be some criteria or ‘cutoff’ point that separates the poor from the non-poor. The poverty line approach became the most widely used way of establishing this (see box 4.1 and Table 4.1).

Box 4.1 How the Poverty Line was Drawn

The cost of purchasing the recommended daily allowance of calories for the average individual was calculated and multiplied by the average household size in a particular context in order to estimate the sum needed to meet the household’s daily needs. The annual or monthly equivalent of this daily income was considered to be the minimum level necessary for the survival of household members. The ‘poverty line’ separates households who earn less than this amount from those earning at least this amount. Data on household income collected routinely through household expenditure surveys is the basis of measuring the incidence of poverty in countries as well as at the international level.

While the poverty line approach continues to be important, it has been modified in response to the following criticisms, all of which are relevant to the gender dimensions of poverty:

• People meet their survival needs not only through monetary income but through a variety of resources – including subsistence production, access to common property resources and state provision of services;
• People also have ‘stocks’ of assets, stores and claims;
• The well-being of human beings, and what matters to them, does not only depend on their purchasing power but on other less tangible aspects, such as dignity and self-respect.

The most telling criticism, however, in relation to the gender dimensions of poverty relates to ideas about relations in the household. As noted previously, conventional economics saw the household as organised around the pooling of income and meeting the welfare needs of all members. However, studies from various parts of the world suggest that, on the contrary, there are widespread and systematic inequalities within households. These may be related to age, life cycle status, birth order, relationship to household head and other factors. The most pervasive, however, are those related to gender. Attempts to estimate poverty that overlooked inequalities in the household therefore provided a very incomplete picture. In particular, they had little to say about women’s experience of poverty relative to that of men within the same household.

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Studies from various parts of the world suggest that . . . there are widespread and systematic inequalities within households . . . The most pervasive . . . are those related to gender.

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Female-headed households and the ‘feminisation of poverty’

Household-level poverty measures did, however, reveal one important aspect of the interaction between gender and poverty: the disproportionate number of female-headed households among the poor. Evidence that the number of female-headed households was increasing in industrialised as well as developing countries led to the claim that there had been a ‘feminisation of poverty’. A major report on the state of world rural poverty by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) concluded that rural women in developing countries were among the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, with 564 million living below the poverty line in 1988. This was an increase of 47 per cent over the numbers in 1965–70. In 1995, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) suggested that women made up 70 per cent of the poor.

Female headship rapidly became the accepted discourse about gender and poverty among international agencies. However, the relationship between female-headed households and poverty is not consistent. Rather, it seems to have a regional dimension, with female-headed households far more likely to be over-represented among the poor in Latin America and Asia than in Africa. This is because female headship can occur through a variety of processes – custom, widowhood, divorce,

separation, polygamy, migration by male or female members and so on. Not all of these have the same implications for household poverty. For example, female-headed households set up by wives in polygamous marriages in Africa or in matrilineal societies in Africa and Asia tend to be better off. In Jamaica, female-headed households are widespread and this is not necessarily associated with poverty. Indeed, those where the male partner is present may be worse off.

Recent attempts to take account of size and composition of household membership in calculating income measures have generally strengthened the association between female headship and poverty. An analysis of household poverty in rural Nepal, for example, that took account of the ‘economies of scale’ associated with larger households found female-headed households to be generally poorer than the rest of the population: they tend to be smaller and have higher dependency ratios. Within the population of female-headed households, de jure female

Washing dishes by a pond in Nepal
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION

heads (widows) were better off than other categories if they had some source of male earnings, but poorer when only households without male earnings were compared. Clearly the presence and absence of male earnings has to be factored into the analysis.

From a policy perspective, therefore, using female headship as a criterion for targeting anti-poverty programmes is not likely to be effective in all cases. In addition, the gender dimensions of poverty are clearly not confined to the issue of female headship, despite the impression that this is the case conveyed by many policy documents. Inequalities of deprivation in male-headed households also need to be explored. However, this cannot be done on the basis of poverty line measures since these are calculated by looking at household income. Instead, it is necessary to focus on the individual.

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From a policy perspective . . . using female headship as a criterion for targeting anti-poverty programmes is not likely to be effective in all cases.

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The Capabilities Approach

Expanding the concepts of ‘means’ and ‘ends’

The ‘basic needs’ approach emerged on the development agenda as a response to:

1. the failure of the benefits of economic growth to ‘trickle down’ to the poor; and
2. the observed success of poor socialist countries, such as China, in improving the nutrition, health and education of large sections of their population.

It expanded the idea of ‘means’ to include – along with market-generated income – essential services that could help people to meet essential needs (e.g. safe drinking water, sanitation, public health and transportation). It also expanded the idea of ‘ends’ to include a wider range of needs considered essential for a decent human life (e.g. shelter, health and clothing). Freely chosen employment was included as part of both ends and means – it generated the income or products needed to meet basic needs and gave individuals the self-respect and dignity essential to their well-being.

This approach was based on the idea of ‘functionings and capabilities’ pioneered by Amartya Sen and elaborated in sub-

sequent work by Dreze and Sen. Income and commodities were seen as important only in as much as they contributed to people’s capabilities to achieve the lives they wanted (their ‘functioning achievements’). Capabilities included not only basic individual ones such as nourishment and health but also more complex social ones, such as taking part in the community and achieving self-respect. A capabilities approach blurs the distinction between ‘means’ and ‘ends’. Health and education, for example, are both functioning achievements in themselves as well as capabilities that allow people to achieve other valued functionings. Since capabilities are not only about what people ‘choose’ but what they are able to achieve, they depend partly on personal circumstances and partly on social constraints.

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Because capabilities are defined in relation to the individual – unlike the poverty line, which is defined in relation to the household – they can also be interpreted and measured in gender-disaggregated ways.

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While these achievements relate to the individual, they can be measured at the community or national level. One attempt to do this is UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI), which combines country-level data on income, life expectancy and educational attainment. The HDI defined the following three abilities as more basic than any others:

• to live a long and healthy life;
• to be knowledgeable; and
• to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living.

These were seen as a ‘measure of empowerment’ and the foundations that would enable people to gain access to other opportunities as well.

Gender inequality and human development

Because capabilities are defined in relation to the individual – unlike the poverty line, which is defined in relation to the household – they can also be interpreted and measured in gender-disaggregated ways. This was attempted by UNDP in the 1995 Human Development Report (HDR), which introduced two important new indices for measuring gender inequality at the national level:

1. The Gender Development Index (GDI) focuses on the same three indicators as the HDI. Life expectancy at birth represents overall health status; a composite indicator of educational attainment (adult literacy rate and combined gross school enrolment ratio) represents knowledge; and real per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) represents standard of living. Gender-disaggregated data for each indicator are given a single social value and combined to calculate the GDI for each country. If the rationale for the HDI is extended to the GDI, it endorses the view that a precondition for the empowerment of women in any context is closing gender disparities in returns to labour efforts, in levels of education attained and in life expectancy.
2. The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) moved the focus of gender inequality from basic capabilities to disparities in wider opportunities and choices. It combined national data on gender inequalities in income earned in professional, managerial and technical occupations and in parliamentary representation. Although this broader definition of gender equality is critical to the overall goal of equitable development, it is not immediately relevant to the gender dimensions of poverty. There is no correlation between the GEM index and measures of basic needs and capabilities, including the HDI and GDI.

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[A] precondition for the empowerment of women in any context is closing gender disparities in returns to labour efforts, in levels of education attained and in life expectancy.

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The GDI is closely linked to per capita GDP and increases as the latter does. It thus does not provide a measure of gender inequality as such. In fact, all the countries ranked in the top ten by the GDI are also all high-income economies while all those ranked in the bottom ten are also all low-income economies. Dijkstra and Hanmer have therefore developed another measure, called the Relative Status of Women (RSW), using the same indicators. This provides information about gender inequality in a country that is independent of its per capita GDP. Not only is the correlation between the per capita GDP and RSW of the 136 countries considered much weaker than when GDI is used, but also the ten best and worst performers no longer correspond to high and low-income countries (see box 4.2).

The capabilities approach has important advantages over the poverty line approach in revealing the gender dimensions of poverty. Gender-disaggregated measurements of basic aspects

Box 4.2 The Importance of Public Policy to Gender Equality

The ten best performers measured by the Relative Status of Women (RSW) include two high-income Scandinavian countries (Finland and Sweden), one upper middle-income, previously socialist, country (Hungary) and seven lower middle-income countries, of which six were previously socialist (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Russian Federation, the Slovak Republic and Jamaica). The ten worst performers include one upper middle-income country (Saudi Arabia), one lower middle-income country (Algeria) and a number of low-income countries (Afghanistan, Chad, Egypt, Mali, Nepal, Pakistan, Sierra Leone and Yemen Republic). While there is a strong ‘Muslim’ majority country presence in this group, they are also largely countries drawn from the belt of extreme patriarchy along with three from the West African region. These two regions also account for the next ten worst performing countries.

This ranking shows the importance of public policies in enabling countries to achieve greater gender equality in ways that are not captured by their income levels. Among the best performers, both the Scandinavian and socialist countries are associated with strongly egalitarian ‘welfare regimes’. The presence among the worst performers of middle-income countries like Algeria and Saudi Arabia, and the absence of low-income Muslim countries like Bangladesh or the Gambia, shows that gender inequalities cannot be attributed to poverty or patriarchy alone. They represent some combination of poverty, patriarchy and public policy.

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[G]ender inequalities cannot be attributed to poverty or patriarchy alone. They represent some combination of poverty, patriarchy and public policy.

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of human capability (such as life expectancy, education and labour force participation), as well as more complex aspects (such as political participation and professional achievements) help build a comprehensive picture of the extent, scope and distribution of gender inequality in both developed and developing countries.

At the same time, it is clearly important to keep improvements in human capabilities due to overall improvements

separate from those that reflect a reduction in gender inequalities. While the absolute level of well-being matters, gender inequality is an ethical problem that governments should be concerned about. There are also policy reasons for investigating women’s absolute levels of deprivation as well as their deprivation relative to men as these are relevant for different human development outcomes.

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In 1995, UNDP reported that women’s wages on average were 75 per cent of male wages.

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Gender inequality and the GDI indicators

There is a relationship between each of the dimensions making up the GDI (and the RSW) and income, growth and the structures of patriarchal constraint. Countries that perform well on one dimension may perform badly on another. Looking at the reasons for these divergences highlights those aspects of gender inequality that are responsive to economic growth and those that may need to be addressed through additional policy measures. It also helps identify the aspects of inequality that are most resistant to change.

Wages and labour force participation

The first of the three basic human capabilities identified by the HDR relates to economic opportunity and is measured by per capita GDP. This indicator reveals inequalities in labour force participation and in wages earned.

As noted in the previous chapter, female labour force participation in developing countries appears to be more strongly related to regional differences in kinship and gender relations than to differences in per capita income or incidence of poverty. Variations in female-to-male wage ratios have a less clear-cut regional pattern. In 1995, UNDP reported that women’s wages on average were 75 per cent of male wages. The three countries with the lowest disparities were Australia, Tanzania and Vietnam, while the three with the highest were Bangladesh, China and the Republic of Korea.

However, there are problems with international estimates of wage disparities – greater perhaps than those of labour force participation. The data used in the GDI have not been standardised for skills, although there are likely to be gender differences in this area. Also, the GDI only looks at formal sector wages. Yet disparities in the informal sector are likely to be

quite different, especially in lower-income, agrarian economies. This is because: (a) the former accounts for just a small fraction of total employment in these countries; and (b) the work force in the informal economy – including the agricultural sector – tends to be less well organised, meaning that wage disparities are probably greater (see box 4.3). In addition, data from the formal economy tends to be dominated by the public sector, where wages are set administratively rather than competitively. Disparities thus tend to be lower than in the rest of the economy (including the rest of the formal economy).

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Women are able to move into better-paid jobs as their education increases and as their attachment to the labour force becomes stronger.

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Box 4.3 Wage Differences in the Gambia

The 1998 Household Expenditure Survey in the Gambia showed that the majority of the economically active population was concentrated in the agricultural sector: 57 per cent of men and 73 per cent of women. Annual agricultural wage earnings for women were less than half those of men. Only 2.4 per cent of the male labour force and 0.6 per cent of the female labour force was in public sector employment. Here median wages varied only slightly by gender.

While available data suggest that wage differences are decreasing, it is not always clear whether this is because female wages are rising or male wages are declining. One study of female-to-male wage ratios for 12 developing countries reported that female wages went up relative to male in all of them. The increase ranged from around 0.6–0.7 per cent annually in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela to 2.4 per cent in Côte d’Ivoire and as much as 5 per cent in the Republic of Korea. There was a small decline in male wages in five of the seven countries for which data on the relevant explanatory variables were available. Another study indicated that the trend in male-female wage differentials is only positive for countries that have attained some level of economic growth. Women are able to move into better-paid jobs as their education increases and as their attachment to the labour force becomes stronger.

In Latin America, where women’s labour force participation has been rising faster than men’s, recent analysis focusing

on its three larger economies (Argentina, Brazil and Chile) also reports that women’s earnings are improving relative to men’s. For all three countries, education levels appeared to be more important than either sex or sector in explaining variations in monthly earnings. At the same time, however, women in all three countries remain over-represented in the lower paid and less well-protected segments of the labour market. They are also likely to express much greater insecurity in relation to basic household survival and well-being than men. The researchers suggest that the most vulnerable section of the working population is those women classified as ‘unpaid family workers’ who have no access to an income of their own.

Despite some positive trends, gender segregation remains a feature of labour markets. The pay gap also remains larger than can be explained by differences in skills or labour market segmentation and suggests some degree of direct discrimination.

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Despite some positive trends, gender segregation remains a feature of labour markets [and] the pay gap . . . suggests some degree of direct discrimination.

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Life expectancy

The second component of the GDI relates to life expectancy, which represents gender differences in health and physical well-being. Age-specific death rates favour women:

• although more males than females are conceived, males are more vulnerable both before and after birth. More girls are born and more boys die in the early years of life; and
• women on average live longer for hormonal reasons.

A reversal in this pattern usually means there is gender discrimination against females. On the other hand, a greater than average disparity in favour of women indicates male disadvantage.

Life expectancies overall roughly approximate the regional distribution of income. They exceed 75 years in the OECD countries, while in the rest of the world they range from 64–72 in Latin America and the Caribbean to around 55 in South Asia and 46–53 in sub-Saharan Africa. Those of women also conform to the regional distribution of per capita GNP. In 1970, sub-Saharan Africa had the lowest levels of female life expectancy (around 45 years) followed by South Asia (47), the Middle East and North Africa (54). East Asia and the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean have higher levels. By 1997, there had been worldwide increases in overall life expectancy, but with least change occurring in the poorer

countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Absolute levels of life expectancy, including absolute levels of female life expectancy, thus differentiate the richer from poorer countries of the world. Among the poorer countries, they differentiate the less from the more poor.

One of the factors that lead to variations in women’s life expectancy is maternal mortality. There are two ways in which it is measured:

1. The maternal mortality ratio. This measures a woman’s risk of dying from a given pregnancy. It is expressed as the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births a year. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) include a commitment to reducing this.
2. The maternal mortality rate. This measures the number of maternal deaths a year per 100,000 women of reproductive age. It takes account of the risks of becoming pregnant and of dying from pregnancy-related causes. Clearly, it goes down as fertility declines.

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The gap between developed and developing countries is wider in terms of maternal mortality than for any other health indicator.

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Like overall and female life expectancy, maternal mortality appears to be strongly correlated with per capita GNP (see box 4.4). The gap between developed and developing countries is wider in terms of maternal mortality than for any other health indicator. This includes infant mortality, the most commonly used measure of comparative disadvantage.

Box 4.4 Estimates of Maternal Mortality Ratios

Government estimates of maternal mortality ratios reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) show them to be highest in Africa, particularly West Africa. Figures of up to 1,750–2,900 per 100,000 births are reported for Mali and 500–1,500 for Ghana. In Asia, they vary between 600 for Bangladesh and 900 for Papua New Guinea, on the high side, and around 10–50 for China and 9–42 for the Republic of Korea. Ratios in Latin America and the Caribbean also vary considerably but tend to be lower than sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Gender inequalities in life expectancy are more closely linked to regional patterns in kinship and family organisation than to regional levels of poverty. There is a close correlation between the ranking of regions of the developing world by female-to-male economic activity ratios and by female-to-male life expectancy ratios. Despite higher levels of poverty, there is greater gender equality in life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa than in some of the higher-income countries in western Asia, North Africa and South Asia. While the percentages of women likely to survive to the age of 65 in 1999 was higher than the percentages for men across the world, the difference was lowest in the regions of ‘extreme patriarchy’. There are also sub-regional variations in gender inequalities reflecting variations in family and kinship systems within regions.

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Gender inequalities in life expectancy are more closely linked to regional patterns in kinship and family organisation than to regional levels of poverty.

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There are some limitations to using life expectancy as a measure of gender inequality. For example, a comparison between Bangladesh and the Gambia showed that the West African country reported higher female than male life expectancy while Bangladesh reported the ‘extreme patriarchy’ pattern of higher male life expectancy. However, more detailed analysis revealed that women in the reproductive years in both countries were at a particular disadvantage. There were high rates of maternity-related mortality and nutritional anaemia among pregnant and lactating women.

Sex ratios

Sex ratios of populations are another indicator of gender discrimination at the level of basic survival chances. Women’s longer life expectancies should logically lead to more females in a population. Consequently, to have more males in a country or region is the reverse of the pattern expected on the basis of biologically determined sex differences. Yet gender disadvantage in some regions significantly outweighs and reverses biological patterns. This has led to a situation where there are over a million ‘missing women’ in the world.

An examination of regional sex ratios in the 1980s found that the populations of the Middle East, northern areas of Africa, the Indian sub-continent and China were all characterised by ‘masculine sex ratios’, i.e. ratios of more than 105 males per 100 females. Countries in North America and Europe had an average of 105 females for 100 males while sub-

Saharan Africa had 102 females. However, there were far fewer females to males in middle eastern countries like Turkey (95), Egypt and Iran (97) and Saudi Arabia (84); in South Asian countries like India (93) and Pakistan (92); and in East Asian countries like China (94).

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Countries in North America and Europe had an average of 105 females for 100 males while sub-Saharan Africa had 102 females. However, there were far fewer females to males in middle eastern . . . , South Asian . . . and East Asian countries.

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Masculine sex ratios are associated with high levels of excess female mortality in the younger age groups. This has been made worse in some countries by high rates of mortality among women of reproductive age. For instance, analysis from 40 developing countries (excluding India and China) showed that excess female mortality among children is most marked in the Middle East belt and close to the median value in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. The ‘geography of gender’ of sex ratios is mirrored in the regional distribution of strong son preference. Patterns of gender discrimination appear to be particularly intransigent in South Asia.

Educational attainment

Education is the third of the capabilities included in estimates in the GDI. It is also central to the MDGs, both in ‘absolute’ terms (increasing overall attainments, particularly at primary level) as well as relative ones (closing the gender gap in adult literacy and education at all levels). The challenge of achieving universal education at even the primary level remains formidable, however, and has a strong gender component. According to UNICEF, over 130 million children of school age in the developing world are growing up without access to basic education. Nearly two of every three children in the developing world who do not receive a primary education are girls. Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest rates of net primary enrolment at 57 per cent, followed by South Asia with 68 per cent, the Middle East and North Africa with 81 per cent, and Latin America and the Caribbean with 92 per cent.

The GDI shows a regional pattern to female (and overall) primary, secondary and tertiary educational attainment that reflects levels of wealth and poverty. Overall educational attainment is highest, and gender inequalities have also been largely eradicated, in the OECD countries. Female-to-male enrolment rates there were 99 per cent in 1990, while they still stand at around 84 per cent in the least developed countries.

The regional pattern of gender differences in adult literacy

– the product of past educational attainments – suggests the influence of local patriarchies. Female literacy as a percentage of male in 1992 was highest in Latin America and the Caribbean (97%), followed by South-East Asia/Pacific (90%), East Asia (80%), sub-Saharan Africa (66%), the Arab states (62%) and South Asia (55%). However, the regional pattern in current educational attainments, as measured by primary enrolment ratios, suggests that this influence may have been lessened by economic growth. All these regions except sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia report high rates of female-to-male enrolment (92 to 98%). This supports the finding that economic growth among countries that have reached a certain level of income helps close the gender gap in education, regardless of regional differences in gender relations.

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[E]conomic growth among countries that have reached a certain level of income helps close the gender gap in education . . .

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Differences in regional patriarchies may explain the disparity between South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Poverty reduction and educational attainment for both girls and boys at the primary levels have been greater in the former. For example, female primary enrolment rates had risen to over 80 per cent in South Asia by 1995, compared to 60 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa. However, gender inequalities continued to be higher in South Asia. Female-to-male attainment at primary level was 75 per cent there compared to 85 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa. At the secondary level, where rates are generally lower, female-to-male ratios were around 14 per cent in the former and 40 per cent in the latter.

Rapid growth, urbanisation and industrialisation in East and South-East Asia appear to have led to both rapidly declining fertility rates as well as rising levels of educational attainment for girls as well as boys. However, there is evidence that the education of male children in some East Asian countries was achieved at the expense, and often through the contribution, of female children. Daughters in Taiwan, for example, were given the minimum level of education necessary to allow them to take up ‘female’ jobs in factories or white-collar clerical work and their wages were then used to subsidise greater investment in sons’ education.

Male disadvantage

Marked deviations from expected patterns of gender difference can reveal not only female but also male disadvantage. Some

examples are provided below in terms of life expectancy and education.

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Marked deviations from expected patterns of gender difference can reveal not only female but also male disadvantage. [e.g. in life expectancy and education].

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Life expectancy

Situations of possible male disadvantage in life expectancy are illustrated by the following:

1. Unusually high female-to-male ratios were found in the 5–9 age group in some of the poorest regions of India among the most socially excluded groups (scheduled castes and tribes). Extremely poor health services and infrastructure in these areas led to fewer boys surviving.
2. Male life expectancy has declined more dramatically than female in Eastern Europe since countries embarked on economic transition. This is probably due to the stress caused by traditional expectations of men being the dominant breadwinners and decision-makers in their families. Rates of cardiovascular diseases, suicide and alcoholism in Russia, for example, are significantly higher for men than women.

The first example suggests the need to improve access to, and provision of, health care facilities in the poorer, more isolated areas of South Asia. The second shows the ‘costs’ that rigidities in gender identities can impose on men. More egalitarian models of gender relations might have allowed the costs of transition to be shared more equitably. Unfortunately, women seem to find it easier – or more imperative – to share the burden of economic provisioning than men appear to find sharing the burden of domestic work.

Education

There is also evidence of male disadvantage in educational attainment in some regions, particularly the English-speaking Caribbean. Women make up 70 per cent of graduates from the University of the West Indies. In Jamaica, the lower achievement of boys is already evident at the primary level and widens subsequently. Prevailing ideas of masculinity and femininity see men as dominant, appropriate to the public sphere, strong, etc. and women as submissive, appropriate to the private sphere, sensitive and so on. These values are internalised by children and structure their interactions at home, school and

work and in the community. The reality, however, is that women have always worked outside the home. Thus while socialisation processes equip women for the discipline of school life, their relative independence allows them to take advantage of labour market and political opportunities. However, there is little to encourage men to participate in an educational system based on values and a language that is perceived as ‘effeminate’.

While male underachievement in education is clearly a matter of concern, it should be noted that it does not translate into male disadvantage in the market place. Data from the 1990s shows that women’s participation in the labour force, and in the formal sectors of their economies, is lower than that of men. They have higher rates of unemployment and tend to be among the lowest paid.

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More comprehensive data on gender disparities in wages across the economy, rather than only in the formal sector, would provide a better measure of economic opportunity.

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Summary

The measures of human capabilities discussed in this section make a number of useful contributions to understanding gender and poverty:

• they help monitor differences in basic achievements across countries and over time;
• they draw attention to regional differences in kinship and gender relations – and associated patterns of gender inequality – that are not necessarily the same as regional patterns of income or poverty; and
• they reveal some aspects of gender inequality that seem to be resilient over time or impervious to economic growth and others that do not.

At the same time, GDI indicators could be made more sensitive to gender disparities in poorer countries. More comprehensive data on gender disparities in wages across the economy, rather than only in the formal sector, would provide a better measure of economic opportunity. In addition, while overall life expectancy may be a useful measure of development, it disguises age-specific differentials in mortality. It also conceals gender disadvantage in the reproductive age groups.

Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs)

Poverty from the perspective of the poor

A growing body of work explores the experience of poverty from the perspective of the poor. Such participatory poverty assessments (PPAs) use a variety of largely qualitative methods (including focus groups, in-depth discussions with key informants and various visual techniques such as matrices, mapping, transects and venn diagrams). They originated in earlier attempts by practitioners in the field to promote ‘bottom-up’ appraisal and evaluation of development projects through a range of techniques collectively known as Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). Participatory approaches are increasingly prominent in national poverty assessment exercises carried out by international development agencies. However, they generally use focus group discussions rather than the range of methods mentioned above.

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A growing body of work explores the experience of poverty from the perspective of the poor.

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Key contributions that PPA approaches have made in relation to the discussion here include showing that:

• Poverty is multi-dimensional and includes not only economic deprivation but also various forms of vulnerability (see box 4.5).
• Poor people are not only concerned with meeting their immediate food needs but also have a variety of longer-term goals such as security, accumulation, social standing and self-respect (although poverty may force them into humiliating patron-client relationships, extremely exploitative forms of work or other equally painful situations).
• Poor people use a variety of ways and means in seeking to achieve their goals, including casual waged work, bonded labour, care of cattle and livestock, micro-cultivation, seasonal migration, sex work, begging and theft.
• Poor people rely on a variety of resources other than their labour, including:

  (a) human resources – which tend to be basic unskilled labour among the very poor;

  (b) material resources – physical assets and inventories, loans in cash and kind and common property resources; and

(c) ‘social’ resources – claims they can make on others as a result of their membership of various social networks, associations and relationships. They depend on informal safety nets of kin and community to tide them over in times of crisis.

Box 4.5 Insecurity and Vulnerability

The World Bank’s World Development Report in 2000 included ‘insecurity’ as one of the three key dimensions of poverty. The Bank designates certain percentages of the population above the poverty line as ‘vulnerable’ because they face a high likelihood of falling below it. Vulnerability has now become an integral aspect of poverty analysis, and is both:

• objective, i.e. the exposure to risks, shocks and stress and the inability to deal with them without sustaining damaging loss (e.g. becoming less healthy, selling off productive assets or withdrawing children from school); and
• subjective, i.e. the sense of powerlessness in the face of threats.

Vulnerability looks at fluctuations in the well-being of the poor and at movements of household into – and out of – poverty over time. For example, among vulnerable groups in the UNICEF critique of structural adjustment were the ‘newly poor’ – those who had been retrenched from the public sector as it was downsized.

A review of 22 national poverty assessments undertaken in sub-Saharan Africa by the mid-1990s identified the following among the dimensions of poverty:

• food insecurity (irregular meals and periods of food shortage);
• exclusion from social services (for financial reasons, but also due to a lack of infrastructure and/or the behaviour of providers);

• lack of ownership of productive assets (e.g. grinding machines, cattle, credit, ox-carts, fishing nets, radios, bicycles and land);
• poor quality housing;
• irregularity of income flows; and
• powerlessness (not being heard in the community).

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[P]overty tended to be associated with dependence . . . [and] the extreme poor were the elderly, the disabled and, in some cases, female-headed households.

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In addition, poverty tended to be associated with dependence. Poor people sought to bind themselves into patron-client relationships, often on demeaning terms, in order to assure some degree of protection in the face of crisis. The extreme poor were the elderly, the disabled and, in some cases, female-headed households. These were totally dependent on the support of others for their survival.

Box 4.6 The Need for Comprehensive Policies to Address Poverty

PPAs have highlighted how different aspects of poverty are connected. This has underlined the need for a comprehensive approach to poverty reduction. Ill-health, for example, was shown to be both a major cause and a consequence of poverty. However, health policies that are independent of measures providing clean drinking water are unlikely to be very effective where there is a high incidence of water-borne diseases. Similarly, hunger undermines school attendance as well as the capacity to learn, while food-for-education schemes help to address both.

Context-specific and qualitative approaches to poverty assessment can enrich poverty analysis in the following ways:

• The information they provide is not determined in advance but emerges out of the process of data collection. This allows findings from quantitative surveys to be verified and interpreted. It can also help to correct entrenched misconceptions.

• They can provide a more dynamic analysis of poverty as they draw attention to its underlying causes and processes as well as to its description.
• They illuminate the factors that connect policy measures at the macro-level and outcomes at the level of individuals, households and communities.

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PPAs have great potential for capturing some of the gendered aspects of poverty . . .

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Participatory assessments and gender

PPAs have great potential for capturing some of the gendered aspects of poverty such as the following:

a. Forms of disadvantage that affect poor women more

They provided a number of examples, including:

• women’s greater time burden – or ‘time poverty’ – in Africa;
• the costs of dowry in Bangladesh; and
• domestic violence, unequal decision-making power and disproportionate workloads in Vietnam. Women were also seen as ‘tools’ in coping with hardship (e.g. girls were sold to foreigners in order to pull the rest of the family out of poverty).

b. The connections between production and reproduction

They made the connections between production and reproduction more visible. For example, the ability of the poor to generate income in Guinea-Bissau is reduced because environmental degradation forces them (especially women) to spend so much time on routine household tasks such as fuel wood collection and fetching water.

c. Variations in household relationships

They made it clear that in some countries (e.g. Ghana and Zambia) women and men had:

• substantially different bases for their livelihood activities;
• a high degree of separation of income streams in the household; and
• an associated separation of family responsibilities.

Anthropological work has already documented this but it had barely registered in mainstream economic analysis, which had

continued to treat households as characterised by the pooling of resources.

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The Consultations with the Poor carried out across the world in preparation for the 2001 World Development Report (WDR), reported that state institutions were not responsive or accountable to the poor.

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d. The vulnerability of female-headed households

They identified female-headed households as more vulnerable to poverty in some parts of Africa: Benin, Kenya, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. Remittances from absent (male) members emerged as an important factor in whether or not female-headed households were poor in Cape Verde, Mauritania and Uganda. In Ghana, female headship was associated with poverty in the north but not in the south.

e. Gender differences in priorities

They showed that men and women often had different concerns and priorities. The Zambian study found that women emphasised basic needs while men emphasised ownership of physical assets. In the Gambia, both women and men prioritised income. However, while women gave second priority to health, men prioritised education. Distance from and quality of drinking water sources were concerns almost exclusively voiced by women in sub-Saharan Africa, reflecting their primary responsibility in this area. Awareness of different priorities is necessary to predict the effects of, for example, increasing male cash flows (will they buy more cattle or meet current food needs?) or of imposing user fees on health or education.

f. Policy-related inequalities and unequal treatment

They showed how policy-related inequalities reinforce women’s economic disadvantage in earning a livelihood. In Guinea-Bissau, South Africa and Zambia, women had often been bypassed in the distribution of credit, agricultural extension, etc. Kenya was the only country where agricultural extension services appeared not to have discriminated against women.

The Consultations with the Poor carried out across the world in preparation for the 2001 World Development Report (WDR), reported that state institutions were not responsive or accountable to the poor. On the contrary, they treated poor people with arrogance and disdain. A PPA from Tanzania, for example, noted the widespread rudeness of health staff. This is partly explained by the fact that those employed in public service tend, almost by definition, to be the better-off, better-

educated or better-connected members of society. They often reproduce inequalities of class, gender, caste and status from the private domain through their actions and interactions in the public domain.

g. Women’s lack of access to resources

They highlighted the problems faced by women in obtaining access to land. In Vietnam, despite the 1993 Land law which protected women’s right to inheritance, sons were inheriting land in accordance with earlier custom. In Kenya and Tanzania too, where women had been granted legal rights to land, customary law continued to prevail and few women took advantage of these rights. In Cameroon, the trend towards privatisation was undermining women’s traditional rights of usufruct. The Guinea-Bissau report, on the other hand, identified lack of credit and other inputs, rather than access to land, as key gender-related constraints. These in turn are a major constraint to the country’s socio-economic development.

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PPAs, like any other methodology, are as gender-blind or as gender-aware as those who conduct them.

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Limitations of participatory assessments

Insights from participatory assessments have increased understanding of the gender dimensions of poverty. However, they have done so unevenly, and often incidentally. Many lack any reference to gender issues while, in others, gender is used simply as a synonym for women. Two key explanations for this are: (a) various kinds of biases in the process by which poverty profiles are compiled and translated into policy; and (b) the fact that ‘poor people’s perceptions’ reflect the norms and values of society to which both women and men subscribe.

a. Various kinds of bias in the process

PPAs, like any other methodology, are as gender-blind or as gender-aware as those who conduct them. The types of questions asked, the issues explored and the range of information obtained depend on what is considered relevant. For example, an analysis in West Bengal talks about the violence experienced by the poor, but does not mention gender-specific forms of violence. Data suggest, however, that sexual assault and harassment of women in the public domain and violence from husbands or other family members in the domestic sphere are

frequent occurrences and often related to frustrations born of poverty.

Even when participatory assessments generate the relevant information, ‘transmission losses’ can occur. The research team may lack the skills to interpret and incorporate the information into the analysis on which policy measures will be based. For example, despite frequent references to alcoholism as a cause of poverty in the assessments, it was never taken up in the analysis because it did not fit the model of poverty that was used. Yet alcoholism, usually a male phenomenon, often goes with male unemployment and domestic violence against women, while brewing alcohol is an important source of livelihood for women in the countryside.

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Even when participatory assessments generate the relevant information, ‘transmission losses’ . . . may occur when the analysis is turned into a policy document . . . The [World] Bank sometimes seems to be imposing its own ideas about poverty as seen in the 1990 WDR rather than basing its actions on the results of the studies.’

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Further transmission losses may occur when the analysis is turned into a policy document. A World Bank peer review process determines what aspects will be included and how these will be translated into practical measures. The Bank sometimes seems to be imposing its own ideas about poverty as seen in the 1990 WDR rather than basing its actions on the results of the studies. For example, female education – particularly primary school enrolment for girls – is often the main policy recommendation relating to gender issues. Yet this appears to reflect the Bank’s own position rather than any priorities suggested in the PPAs. Indeed, rural parents often express their reluctance to educate their daughters.

b. ‘Poor people’s perceptions’ reflect social norms and values

The findings of PPAs may also fail to include gender issues because of ‘poor people’s perceptions’. These perceptions often reflect norms and values that do not attach any weight to gender inequalities or to violations of women’s human rights. Moreover, women frequently subscribe to these value systems and accept that they have lesser worth as human beings. For example, both men and women in Guinea saw women’s heavier workloads as well as male domination in private and public decision-making as ‘natural’ to the organisation of gender relations rather than unjust.

Relying on poor people to define their condition can also conceal major issues of inequality, many of which implicate women. These include female foeticide and infanticide, biases

in the distribution of health and nutrition in the family and exploitative treatment of younger women by older (e.g. their mothers-in-law). Another example is female circumcision. This is not only a means of controlling women’s sexuality and a considerable threat to their health and well-being but also a way in which mothers prepare their daughters for womanhood. However, there is little reference to the issue in PPAs carried out in countries where it is widely practised. The Gambian PPA, for example, does not mention it despite the fact that 99 per cent of adult women have been circumcised and it has been taken up as a health as well as a rights issue by local women’s groups.

While violence against women is mentioned in some assessments, they do not capture the scale on which it occurs. The use, or threat, of violence is clearly an important factor in maintaining power relations in the household. Reasons for domestic violence given in PPAs range from a husband not getting his meals on time to a mother-in-law asserting her authority over her son’s new wife. Violence is also reported in situations where women were seeking some degree of independence, such as when they gained access to loans or to paid work. However, there is also a poverty dimension to domestic violence since scarcity and economic crisis intensify frustrations in the family.

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Many aspects of gender discrimination are embedded in unquestioned and largely unnoticed traditions and beliefs that are seen as biologically given or divinely ordained.

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Many aspects of gender discrimination are embedded in unquestioned and largely unnoticed traditions and beliefs that are seen as biologically given or divinely ordained. Subordinate groups are likely to accept, and even collude with, their lot in society where:

1. powerful cultural or ideological norms explain and justify inequality; and
2. the possibility of challenging these norms is both limited and likely to carry heavy personal and social costs.

Women may think that violence at the hands of their husbands is an acceptable part of marriage or a legitimate expression of male authority. They may not perceive or complain about gender discrimination in the household, and indeed may practise it against their own daughters. These aspects of deprivation, while they may reflect society-wide beliefs and practices,

can be exacerbated by poverty. At the same time, values and beliefs can be changed. As communities become exposed to new realities, they see possible new ways of ‘being and doing’ and start to question what was previously taken for granted.

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The three ways of thinking about poverty outlined . . . offer different insights and, taken together, provide a more comprehensive understanding of the gender dimensions of poverty than any would on its own.

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Conclusion

The three ways of thinking about poverty outlined above are complementary rather than competing. They offer different insights and, taken together, provide a more comprehensive understanding of the gender dimensions of poverty than any would on its own. The evidence they provide of gender inequalities in the distribution of basic needs and capabilities in the household – together with studies showing that households do not necessarily pool their incomes – presents a serious challenge to the unitary model of the household favoured by conventional economists. This model had previously dominated economic approaches to poverty analysis and informed many of the policies intended to address poverty.

There has thus been growing attention by economists to other ideas of the household. In ‘bargaining’ models, for example, household members are assumed to ‘co-operate’ in production and reproduction because the returns to this outweigh those to individual efforts. Should there be conflict over the terms of co-operation or the distribution of its gains, decisions are arrived at through either: (a) bargaining and

Women working in the fish canning industry in Thailand
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION

Box 4.7 The Need for a Multi-faceted Response to Gender Disadvantage

Women, particularly poorer women, face extremely unfavourable access to land and other valued resources. Also, the terms on which they participate in paid work, including the returns to their efforts, do little to improve their subordinate status in the family. They may be actively discriminated against in access to important resources such as credit, agricultural inputs, extension services, marketing outlets and so on. Clearly, dismantling such ‘imposed gender disadvantages’ could play an important role in addressing gender inequalities in the household as well as the economy. Formal legislation on gender equality is one way to address deeply-entrenched forms of discrimination in marriage and work. At the same time it is important to note that legislation alone will not ensure women’s rights if customary laws and community beliefs prevent it from being implemented. Education and information on these rights is needed, together with an effective enforcement machinery and an active civil society prepared to undertake public action to ensure their enforcement.

negotiation; (b) the covert or overt exercise of threat, including the threat of violence; or (c) compliance on the part of subordinate members. Alternatively, unresolved conflicts can result in the break-down of co-operation as a member (or members) exercise the ‘exit’ option and withdraw from household membership altogether. The extent to which household members can promote their own preferences or interests will reflect their bargaining power in relation to other members.

These new approaches thus accommodate the possibility of unequal power relations in the household in a way that previous models did not. An important contribution of this literature is the idea of a ‘fall-back’ position as something that determines bargaining power in the household. This refers to the resources that women and men are able to command (fall back on), independent of their membership of that household. Women are likely to make fewer claims on household and community

resources in cultures where they are defined as inferior or less deserving than men. Also, women are much more likely to see themselves, and be seen by others, as of less worth in situations where their contribution to the household is confined to unpaid family work and hence less visible. Improving women’s access to resources outside the household can thus provide them with leverage to challenge power relations inside it (see box 4.7).

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As women gain access to new forms of resources, previously accepted aspects of deprivation and discrimination are likely be increasingly questioned.

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As women gain access to new forms of resources, previously accepted aspects of deprivation and discrimination are likely be increasingly questioned. Policies that seek to address the gender dimensions of poverty, and to tackle gender discrimination in a society, have an important role to play in this process of change. They can promote new models of gender relations that help to expand the range of possibilities available to women and men in organising their lives.

Document(s) 7 of 13