Gender and Poverty: Conceptual Overview Sonia Montaño Women and Development Unit Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean Inter-Agency and Expert Group Meeting on the Development of Gender Statistics December 2006, New York

Poverty is multidimensional From a gender perspective poverty includes specific dimensions such as Unequal distribution of opportunities access to income and economic resources Political participation and decision making Gender based Violence Time Use Reproductive rights

Income Poverty Methodology: What gender bias does it have? Men and women are distributed equally among the poor. It doesn’t capture individual poverty. It ignores gender based violence, which has high prevalence in the region. A manifestation of violence that usually takes place is economic violence toward women (prohibition to work, to decide what to do with the family income, etc). It doesn’t capture economic vulnerability. If a person is an income receiver, then he has greater power of decision within the household in comparison to income dependant members. Assumptions: Equal income distribution within the household. Both the household and all the individuals within are equally classified as poor or non-poor. It considers the household as a harmonic entity, disregards conflict and negotiation capacities individual characteristics are not relevant. It ignores power relations within the household. Effects:

Despite the limitations that income poverty measures have, WDU-ECLAC has suggested a set of indicators that allow to measure, at least partially, the way that poverty affects women. The indicators that follow will allow us to see: (i) If women have the same degree of economic autonomy as men (ii) If female headed households are more vulnerable to poverty; (iii) If more women than men are affected by poverty. Nevertheless…

Women’s economic dependence contributes to their vulnerability to situations of subordination. In this scenario the access, use and control of money might be severely restrained. Latin America (Simple Average, 16 countries urban areas, 13 countries rural areas): Population without own individual income, by sex and age (Data close to 2002) – Percentage with respect to the sex total

This indicator summarizes the smaller access that women have to income. This inequality might arise due to differences in labor and/or non-labor income. Latin America (Simple Average, 15 countries, only urban areas) Distribution of men and women separately, in income quintiles, considering household per capita income (Population of 15 years and older) Distribution of men and women separately in income quintiles, considering individual income (Population of 15 years and older)

Percentage of female headed household and female headed household under the extreme poverty line (2002)

Furthermore, the severity of poverty is higher in female headed households. This is due to the fact that per capita income within these families is further away from the poverty line. Poverty gap, by sex of the household head (1999, 2002)

In the population between 20 and 59 years of age there are more women than men that live in poverty. Particularly among the separated and widows. Poverty Femenity Index

The lack or insufficiency of income is frequently related to non- remunerated domestic work. Women are the main responsible of this activity, Percentage of the population that participates in domestic activities, by sex (12 years of age and older) Number of Hours dedicated to domestic activities, by sex Hours a dayHours a week

Total labor day: Number of hours dedicated to market oriented work plus hours dedicated to non-remunerated domestic work (Only men and women employed) Fuente: CEPAL, Unidad Mujer y Desarrollo, sobre la base de tabulaciones especiales de las encuestas de hogares de los respectivos países.

Countries with information to calculate income poverty from a gender perspective : Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras México Nicaragua Panamá Paraguay Perú Rep. Dominicana Uruguay Venezuela Cuba Haití

Countries with information to calculate time use indicators : Cuba Bolivia Ecuador Guatemala México Nicaragua Increasing efforts to develop Time Use Surveys are needed in order to make visible one of the most important dimensions of poverty for women.