Seeing poverty through a gender lens

This article argues that the links between gender and poverty have, until r ecently, escaped careful analytical scrutiny. An exclusive focus on poverty outcomes very often means that the processes lending to it are overlooked. It also inevitably means that gender is dealt with through an analytically limited process of disaggregation, either of households using the gender o f the household head as the stratifier, or of individuals by differentiatin g males and females. Moreover, sweeping generalisations about female disadv antage need to be revised in view of the contradictory findings now availab le. The current policy consensus on poverty, which vehemently maintains tha t labour-intensive growth is pro-peer, presents a number of problems-bath f rom a general poverty perspective, and more particularly from the point of view of poor women. Labour-saving technologies that reduce drudgery can be valuable for both men and, especially, women from smallholder households. F eminist concerns about the 'care economy' have not been adequately reflecte d in recent policy agendas; the emphasis on human capital (and female educa tion), although insufficient in itself, may provide at least an opening for raising these important concerns.