Sylvia Chant

The ‘Feminisation of Poverty’ and the ‘Feminisation’ of Anti-Poverty Programmes: Room for Revision?

Abstract The construct of the ‘feminisation of poverty’ has helped to give gender an increasingly prominent place within international discourses on poverty and poverty reduction. Yet the way in which gender has been incorporated pragmatically – predominantly through the ‘feminisation’ of anti-poverty programmes – has rarely relieved women of the onus of coping with poverty in their households, and has sometimes exacerbated their burdens. In order to explore how and why this is the case, as well as to sharpen the methodological and conceptual parameters of the ‘feminisation of poverty’ thesis, this paper examines four main questions. First, what are the common understandings of the ‘feminisation of poverty’? Second, what purposes have been served by the popularisation and adoption of this term? Third, what problems are there with the ‘feminisation of poverty’ analytically, and in respect of how the construct has been taken up and responded to in policy circles? Fourth, how do we make the ‘feminisation of poverty’ more relevant to womens lives – and empowerment – at the grassroots? Foremost among my conclusions is that since the main indications of feminisation relate to womens mounting responsibilities and obligations in household survival we need to re-orient the ‘feminisation of poverty’ thesis so that it better reflects inputs as well as incomes, and emphasises not only womens level or share of poverty but the burden of dealing with it. Another, related, conclusion is that just as much as women are often recruited into rank-and-file labour in anti-poverty programmes, ‘co-responsibility’ should not be a one-way process. This requires, inter alia, the more active support of men, employers and public institutions in domestic labour and unpaid care work.

Women-headed households : diversity and dynamics in the developing world

Households headed by women are a growing presence worldwide. This is the first book to focus on their diversity and dynamics in developing countries. Set within the context of global trends and debates on female household headship, the analysis explores the reasons for the formation and increase in women-headed households in different parts of the world and their capacity for survival in societies where male-headed households are both the norm and ideal. Case-study material from urban and urbanising areas in Mexico, Costa Rica and the Philippines illustrates the varied routes by which low-income women enter household headship, and the outcomes for women and other household members at the grassroots. While personal experiences of female headship often differ between individuals and countries, women-headed households everywhere are exposed to discrimination and disadvantage. Vital measures to counteract this tendency include increased awareness and acceptance of multiple contemporary forms of household and family life. To this end, Chant calls for greater collaboration in analysis, policy and action for gender equality across the North-South divide.

Women in the Third World : gender issues in rural and urban areas

Social scientists critique womens roles and their status in developing countries. They specifically look at their roles in child care housework subsistence farming employment and health care. They address status by examining wider societys value and meaning given to womens roles which in turn reflect and influence gender relations. They highlight the ideological and practical gender inequality that is incorporated into development. The majority of women in this book are low income women since poverty is widespread in developing countries and most of the literature covers low income women. They 1st examine women in rural areas then those in urban areas. 5 major themes relevant to gender questions are used. Households present the 1st theme since they are the fundamental site for sexual division of labor. The next theme is reproduction meaning transformation of good and services for household use (nonincome generating activities) as well as welfare family planning health care and urban housing and services. Reproduction in the former meaning limits women from partaking in public life and politics. The 3rd theme is production which refers to all income generating activities. In rural areas however it is often more difficult to distinguish between production and reproduction because of the intermediate category of subsistence farming. The 4th theme incorporates both policy and planning. They look at agricultural and rural development planning; urban planning including housing programs service provision and community development projects; and government and development agencies consideration of women and womens work. The last theme is rural-urban migration. They attempt to make generalizations about each major developing country region: Latin America the Caribbean Middle East and North Africa Sub-Sahara Africa South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Re‐thinking the “Feminization of Poverty” in Relation to Aggregate Gender Indices

The “feminization of poverty” is often referred to without adequate specification or substantiation, and does not necessarily highlight aspects of poverty that are most relevant to women at the grassroots. The United Nations Development Programmes gender indices go some way to reflecting gendered poverty, but there is scope for improvement. In order to work towards aggregate indices that are more sensitive to gender gaps in poverty as identified and experienced by poor women, the main aims of this paper are two‐fold. The first is to draw attention to existing conceptual and methodological weaknesses with the “feminization of poverty”, and to suggest how the construct could better depict contemporary trends in gendered privation. The second is to propose directions for the kinds of data and indicators that might be incorporated within the Gender‐related Development Index or the Gender Empowerment Measure, or used in the creation of a Gendered Poverty Index.

Fixing women or fixing the world? ‘Smart economics’, efficiency approaches, and gender equality in development

This article focuses on the current trend for investing in women and girls as ‘smart economics’, which is a direct descendant of the efficiency approach to women in development (WID) prevalent in the wake of the economic crisis in the 1980s. We highlight the dangers of conflating the empowerment of women as individuals with the feminist goal of removing the structural discrimination which women face as a gendered constituency, and consider the implications for feminists in development if they adopt smart economics-speak and work in coalition with individuals and organisations who have fundamentally different aims. This has attractions in strategic terms, but risks recreating the very problems gender and development seeks to transform.

Youth, gender and livelihoods in West Africa: Perspectives from Ghana and the Gambia

Abstract In this paper we report on preliminary fieldwork conducted in Ghana and The Gambia on the interrelationships among youth, gender and livelihoods. We examine how policy in developing countries, typically characterised as related to child labour or education, needs to emphasise the linkage across processes that affect young people. We argue that policy will be improved if young people are given voice to express how work, education, social networks, and culturally-bound notions of responsibility are linked and how they perceive the opportunities and constraints on their ‘life chances’.

Men in crisis? Reflections on masculinities, work and family in north‐west Costa Rica

Based on interviews with 80 low-income men conducted in the province of Guanacaste, northwest Costa Rica, this study explores mens relationships with work and family. The discussion highlights the causes of an emergent ‘crisis of masculinity’ among men in the region, and its interconnections with employment, gender and conjugal relationships. The main argument of the study is that, although to some degree ‘the family’ in Guanacaste has always been an unstable entity, and a source of stress for women and children, this is presently becoming a problem for men as well, whose traditional bases of power and identity in family units are being undermined by changes in the labour market, and by legislative and policy initiatives in womens interests. Mens current ‘crisis’ in Guanacaste is strongly tied to their loss of power within families, rather than the break-up of family units per se, and to the fact that decisions within and about households are increasingly being taken out of their own hands. The study concludes with pointers to the need for social policy to assist in creating space for new familial masculinities and more egalitarian and co-operative relations between men and women.

‘Men-streaming’ gender? Questions for gender and development policy in the twenty-first century

Insofar as gender is still so often equated with women alone, the move from Women in Development to Gender in Development has changed very little. Men as a human category have always been present, involved, consulted, obeyed and disobeyed in development work. Yet men as a gendered category in a feminist sense - involving unequal power relations between men and women and between men - have rarely been drawn into development programmes in any substantial way. This paper addresses conceptual and operational obstacles to men’s involvement in gender and development, drawing on interviews with over 40 representatives of development organizations in Britain and the USA in 1999.

Cities through a “gender lens”: a golden “urban age” for women in the global South?

Although urban women generally enjoy some advantages over their rural counterparts, a range of gender inequalities and injustices persist in urban areas that constrain their engagement in the labour market and in informal enterprises and inhibit the development of capabilities among younger women. These include unequal access to decent work, human capital acquisition, financial and physical assets, intra-urban mobility, personal safety and security, and representation in formal structures of urban governance. But the nature of these varies for different groups of women, not only on account of poverty status and where they live in the city, but also according to age, household characteristics, degree of engagement in income-generating activities and so on. This paper reviews what we have learnt from the literature on gender and urban development. It discusses disparities in access to education and vocational training and to land and housing ownership through a “gender lens”. It considers service deficiencies and associated time burdens, which limit income generation among women. Violence and gender, and gender divisions in access to different spaces within the city and in engagement in urban politics, are also covered. These factors cast doubt on whether women’s contributions to the prosperity often associated with urbanization are matched by commensurate returns and benefits.

‘The unbearable heaviness of being’ reflections on female altruism in Cambodia, Philippines, The Gambia and Costa Rica

Reviewing existing scholarship and drawing on our own experience of microlevel qualitative research on gender in countries in three regions of the Global South (Cambodia, the Philippines, Costa Rica and The Gambia), this article examines patterns of women’s altruistic behaviour within poor family-based households. As a quality and practice labeled as ‘feminine’, the article illuminates the motives, dimensions and dynamics that characterise this apparently enduring female trait. It also makes some tentative suggestions as to how the links between women and altruism might be more systematically examined, problematized and addressed in development, and gender and development (GAD) analysis and policy.