XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

943

Feminization of Poverty: Mainstreaming Gender Perspective to Address Poverty

WG05 Famine and Society (host committee)

Language: English

Transformations in the world economy have profoundly changed the parameters of social development across the globe. One significant trend has been the increased poverty of women, the extent of which varies from region to region.  Poverty has various manifestations, including lack of income sufficient to ensure a sustainable livelihood; hunger and malnutrition; ill health; limited or lack of access to education and other basic services; homelessness and inadequate housing; and social discrimination and exclusion. It is also characterized by lack of participation in decision-making and in civil, social and cultural life. It occurs in all countries - as mass poverty in many developing countries and as pockets of poverty amidst wealth in developed countries. More than 1 billion people in the world today, the great majority of whom are women, live in unacceptable conditions of poverty, mostly in the developing countries. Feminization of poverty has various causes, including structural ones. The gender disparities in economic power-sharing are also an important contributing factor to the poverty of women. Migration and consequent changes in family structures have placed additional burdens on women. Macroeconomic policies focus almost exclusively on the formal sector and fail to consider the differential impact on women and men. The application of gender analysis to a wide range of policies and programmes is therefore critical to poverty reduction strategies. The proposed session invites papers focusing on various dimensions of gender and poverty, the causes and consequences of inequality and what more we can do to address the problems.