Women are more likely to be poor than men: UN Women

CAIRO – 12 November 2017: The United Nations for Women and the World Bank analyzed household survey data for 89 countries on October 18, demonstrating how gender contributes to poverty as women are more likely to be poor than men.

The research aims to improve policy interventions to eradicate global poverty and meet sustainable development goals. Sex, age, household composition and other relevant variables were put into consideration.

Senior Economist of the World Bank Kinnon Scott said that women aged 20-34 years are more likely to be poor than men, relating these results to several factors, including divorce, separation, widowhood as well as having young children in the household and the higher probability of women to leave the labour market to respond to the demands of unpaid care-giving.

The research also showed that single mothers with children are among the poorest, since divorced women in the 18-49 age group are more than twice as likely to be poor than divorced men in the same age group.

Chief of Research and Data Section at UN Women Shahra Razavi said that this inequality in the division of unpaid care work and the greater likelihood of women not having an independent income place them at a severe economic disadvantage compared to men and lead to a higher risk of poverty. She pointed out that policy interventions should pay attention to those barriers that women face.

Former Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Magdalena Sepúlveda explained that the success or failure of social protection systems in addressing women’s poverty heavily depends on other multiple forms of discrimination against women. She noted women’s agricultural work across South Asia is an example.
The Collective for Social Science Research in Pakistan Haris Gazdar said that women’s work there is unrecognized by governments, data collectors, employers, families and even women themselves, which leads to their either being underpaid or unpaid at all. The undernourishment of women and their children may consequently seem unsurprising.

This research will feed into the first issue of UN Women’s new flagship report, Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which will launch in February 2018. The report will examine the performance of the global community's efforts to turn the new development agenda into tangible progress for women and girls.