Introduction

The feminization of poverty thesis states that women are disproportionately affected by poverty. Despite having been originally formulated in the United States, the feminization of poverty thesis became a core dimension of the integration of gender into development policy in the Global South. Addressing women's poverty was identified as a critical area of intervention by the Beijing Platform for Action, launched in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women. Since then the belief that poverty is feminized informed the gender mainstreaming agenda, with a specific focus on how poverty alleviation programmes could/should serve women. In this way, it allowed development actors to target women (or, more often, women-headed households) to pursue the twin goal of poverty alleviation and gender equality. As women-headed households became protagonists in development scholarship and policy, important feminist debates unpacked this category and questioned its nature. Much as the deserving female-headed household captured the imagination of scholars and policy makers, the feminization of poverty narrative suffers from several conceptual and methodological limitations and promotes a simplistic understanding of the interconnections of poverty and gender. A critical engagement with the feminization of poverty thesis entails a reflection on how poverty is measured and, importantly, how poverty and gender are interconnected; in particular, important questions are raised on the structure versus agency debate that is cross-cutting in feminist thinking.

This chapter begins with a discussion of the meaning of feminization of poverty (section 9.2), it then engages with a brief debate on measurements of poverty (section 9.3) and articulates the limitations of the feminization of poverty narrative (9.4). Finally, it considers different feminist perspectives on the links between poverty and gender (section 9.5).

What is the feminization of poverty?

The feminization of poverty thesis states that women are disproportionately affected by poverty. Why would this be the case? Women face disadvantages in several domains, which can result in the increased likelihood of their falling into poverty. Women have more limited access to productive resources such as land, credit and education; they are employed in lower-paid and more insecure jobs; they carry the burden of reproductive work; and they face greater constraints to socio-economic mobility because of cultural, legal and labour market barriers.