IMPROVING THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN POVERTY

This publication addresses some of the intractable difficulties in designing, targeting
and evaluating poverty reduction strategies. It is the culmination of a project on “Improving
the Status of Women in Poverty” under which country studies were conducted in
Bangladesh, India, Malaysia and the Philippines. These studies focused on conceptual and
methodological issues relating to poor female-maintained and female-headed households in
rural and urban areas. The methodology developed through this project of a four-fold
classification of households (female-headed female maintained, female-headed male maintained,
male-headed female-maintained and male-headed male-maintained) has been found
useful for identification of households which are the poorest and most vulnerable. The study
also covered two different dimensions of well-being: quantifiable measures focusing on basic
needs and relatively non-quantifiable dimensions of deprivation such as autonomy and
decision-making.