Gender and Poverty

The project of privatisation of water has been floated in Bangalore since 1999, and though it has been kept in abeyance by social activists and non-government organisations working with the urban poor, water is being commoditised. In this article, I examine the impact of this process on the struggles of poor women to access water for themselves and their dependants, in a slum rehabilitation area in Bangalore. Women are resisting the monetisation of water, which they consider to be a human right. While the advantages of the technologies that accompany this process are emphasised by the authorities – piped water is seen as saving time and increasing mobility, as well as delivering a higher-quality resource – women retort that the requirement to pay for water outweighs any benefits, and other material realities of life still bind them to their homes.

This study was undertaken to investigate the causes of poverty among women in Chikombedzi, Masvingo. Zimbabwe. The quest to identify the causes of the failure of positive change to the lives of women in Chikombedzi was the motivation behind this research. A descriptive study was conducted using a mixed design to solicit respondents’ views, opinions and sentiments through the use of questionnaires and interviews. The study established that Xangani women were side-lined in all economic activities. Lack of academic and professional qualifications as well as culture were identified as limitations that affected women’s economic status. The study recommends education programmes that target girls and women to promote basic skills of reading and writing since most women in Chikombedzi lack such skills; women in Chikombedzi need to organise themselves into a women organisation advocating for women rights in their communities; civil society should come up with advocacy programmes that target both women and men so as to change the mind-set of the whole community on how they view women; and there is need for the alignment of traditional leadership with the rights of women as enshrined in the constitution of Zimbabwe and other global agreements such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Marriages in India are essentially endogamous in nature. The influences of western education and socio-economic transformations have led to enormous change in the existing pattern of choosing one’s life partner and marriage practices in India. For the first time, this paper presents a comprehensive empirical assessment of the extent of mixed marriages by analyzing nationally representative data from the Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS, 2005). We consider mixed marriages in the following key aspects: Inter-caste marriage, Inter-religious marriage and Inter-economic group marriage (Inter-class marriage). The trend analyses reveal that the proportion of inter-caste and inter-religious marriages has doubled in the last two and half decades. With the exception of inter-class marriages, the absolute level of mixed marriages is still exceedingly small. Besides, there are substantial variations across the states. Regression analyses show a significant socio-economic differential in the occurrence of mixed marriages. The study reveals that a very few women have the freedom to choose their spouse. These findings assume importance in the context of an increasing number of ‘honour killings’ in India in the recent years.

Resumo Este trabalho de pesquisa tenta responder à pergunta sobre como as estratégias de assistência à infância (crianças de 0 a 4 anos de idade) são desenvolvidas por mulheres jovens de contextos de alta vulnerabilidade socioeconômica na cidade de Montevidéu, tanto aquelas que apoiam seu projeto educacional no ensino secundário quanto outras que não seguiram sua trajetória educacional. Foram realizadas entrevistas em profundidade com a população acima mencionada para investigar a dimensão subjetiva de cuidados e gênero, e a análise qualitativa foi complementada com dados da Pesquisa Nacional de Desenvolvimento, Nutrição e Saúde Infantil (2013) para investigar os elementos materiais (como oportunidades: tempo, ter um centro de assistência à infância, co-responsabilidade no cuidado com o casal) com os quais se contam para o desenvolvimento da estratégia de cuidados entre as mulheres que estudam e as mulheres que não estudam. Palavras-chave: gênero, assistência à infância, pobreza, trajetórias educacionais. Resumen El presente trabajo de investigación intenta abordar la pregunta acerca de cómo son las estrategias de cuidado infantil (niños hasta 4 años) desarrolladas por mujeres jóvenes en contextos de alta vulnerabilidad socioeconómica en la ciudad de Montevideo. Se han constituido dos grupos: uno de mujeres que sostienen un proyecto educativo en enseñanza media y otras que no siguieron su trayectoria educativa, siendo que todas tienen hijos pequeños a cargo. Se realizaron entrevistas en profundidad para indagar en la dimensión subjetiva del cuidado y de género, y se complementó el análisis cualitativo con datos de la Encuesta Nacional de Desarrollo, Nutrición y Salud Infantil (2013) para conocer elementos estructurales que pueden ser relevantes en la configuración de las estrategias de cuidado como son el tiempo, la utilización de servicios de cuidado, la corresponsabilidad en los cuidados con sus parejas en el caso de las que estudian y no estudian.

Klimakrise und Energiewende sind keine rein technischen, sondern zutiefst soziale Herausforderungen – dabei muss allen Menschen ermoglicht werden, an vorhandenen Ressourcen und technologischen Innovationen teilhaben zu konnen. Dieser Beitrag beschaftigt sich mit dem Phanomen der Energiearmut und ihren Geschlechtsspezifika. Denn Frauen sind besonders gefahrdet, in Policy-Konzepten nicht mitgedacht und infolge benachteiligt zu werden, da sie zumeist uber geringeres Einkommen verfugen, mehr Care-Arbeit leisten (mussen) und auch mit der Ressource Energie anders umgehen als Manner.

En el presente trabajo estimamos la incidencia, la intensidad y la desigualdad de la pobreza multidimensional en Nicaragua a lo largo de los primeros quince años del siglo XXI, utilizando como unidad de identificación la persona y no el hogar, decisión normativa que nos distancia de la inmensa mayoría de medidas propuestas hasta la fecha, pero que nos permite tomar en cuenta las diferentes desigualdades que podrían estar coexistiendo a lo interno de los hogares y estimar el diferencial de género en pobreza y desigualdad. En general, nuestros resultados sugieren que la pobreza en Nicaragua continúa siendo un problema de gran calado, no muy fácil de resolver. No obstante encontramos evidencia estadísticamente significativa de que la pobreza multidimensional en este país se redujo a lo largo de los primeros quince años del siglo  XXI, el país necesitaría de varias décadas para erradicar la pobreza entre su población. Por otro lado, nuestras estimaciones evidencian que en Nicaragua la pobreza multidimensional no presenta sesgo de género, los hombres y las mujeres son igualmente pobres. Sin embargo, todo lo contrario parece ser el caso de la desigualdad, especialmente entre los adultos. Hasta donde tenemos constancia, este trabajo es el primero en proponer una medida de pobreza multidimensional basada en la persona, y para toda la población, en Nicaragua, el primero en Latinoamérica en estimar la brecha de género en pobreza multidimensional y desigualdad, y representa una de las primeras contribuciones en la literatura.

In this paper we estimate the incidence, the intensity, and the inequality of the multidimensional poverty in Nicaragua over the first fifteen years of the XXI century, using the individual as the unit of identification of the poor, and applying the methodology proposed by Alkire and Foster (2007, 2011). This normative decision allows us to take into account the intra-household inequalities, and to estimate the gender gap in multidimensional poverty and inequality, which cannot be calculated whether the household is used as the unit of analysis. Although we find statistically significant evidence that multidimensional poverty decreased over the analysis period, Nicaragua would demand of several decades to eradicate the issue, ceteris paribus. On the other hand, our estimates show that the gender gaps in multidimensional poverty are not substantial; women and men are equally poor in Nicaragua. But, the reverse is the case for the inequality, notably among the adults. To our best knowledge, this paper represents the first attempt to propose an individual-based multidimensional poverty for the whole population in Nicaragua, the first effort to estimate gender gaps in multidimensional poverty and inequality in Latin America, and one of the first contributions in the literature.

Este capítulo se centra en el análisis de las interacciones entre las transferencias condicionadas de ingresos y otras intervenciones estatales en un territorio urbano específico. Este trabajo compara la construcción estatal de las necesidades de las mujeres de sectores populares en relación a dos problemas sociales que ellas destacan (pobreza material y seguridad ciudadana). El principal argumento que se expone es que la distancia entre las concepciones de la pobreza que emergen del Estado y las de las propias beneficiarias produce como consecuencia una conjunto de «narrativas silenciadas» de las mujeres, relacionadas a encadenamientos de violencia social, estatal y de género que atraviesan su vida cotidiana, y que ellas mismas identifican con sus experiencias de exclusión social.

Table of Contents
I. Poverty & Gender Issues: “Orphans” Of The
Reorganization?
II. A Case For Revamping The Poverty Assessment Of Every
Borrowing Country
III. A Case For Performing Social Assessments For Every
Project
IV. Board Debates About NGOs
V. New Policy Statements Will Guide Lending
VI. Alert: Board To Consider New Guarantees For Private
Sector Investors