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 women's lives – and empowerment – at the grassroots? Foremost among my conclusions is that since the main indications of feminisation relate to women's 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 women's 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.