Gender and poverty measurement

This chapter considers not only how gendered poverty has been measured, but also the challenges to gender poverty measurement posed by women’s differing experiences of poverty and deprivation. Demands for internationally comparable gender indicators have often led to measures being based on existing data sets not necessarily designed for measuring gender inequality. The household has often been the key site for measuring gender poverty, but how households function is often not fully considered. There have been some attempts at more holistic measures of gender inequality at a national and individual level. However, policymakers have largely failed to invest in defining the gender questions that matter for women. The gender data gap has led to many inequality indicators being poor reflections of the multiple disadvantages many women face in their daily lives and is a major limitation to future policy development.