The 'feminisation of poverty' is viewed as a global trend, and of particular concern in developing regions. Yet although popularisation of the term may have raised women's visibility in development discourses and gone some way to 'en-gender' policies for poverty reduction, the construct is only weakly substantiated. This work covers this topic.

Based on focus groups and interviews with nearly 4,000 women, men, girls, and boys from 20 countries, this book explores areas that are less often studied in gender and development: gender norms and agency. It reveals how little gender norms have changed, how similar they are across countries, and how they are being challenged and contested.

The author uses four different facets of the social life of food--diet, cuisine, discourse, & practice--to draw a richly detailed & compelling portrait of one South American community.

Anna Tarrant’s revealing research explores the dynamics and diversity of men’s caring roles in low-income households at various stages of their lives. It sheds light on men’s participation in care and the factors that affect it, including class, culture, work and the impact of austerity.

. . . possibly the most comprehensive contribution to a detailed and thorough analysis of gendered dimensions of international poverty contexts, causes, and consequences ever brought together into one volume. Gender and Development I recommend this book to be a staple of reference libraries. British Politics and Policy With international attention focused on halving poverty by 2015, the appearance of The International Handbook of Gender and Poverty is both timely and essential. Sylvia Chant is to be congratulated for producing a state-of-the-art compendium of everything you need to know about the often hidden, gendered, dimensions of poverty. Edited and written by leading scholars and policy advisers, the Handbook comprehensively covers the key themes that are vital to understanding poverty as a gendered process, combining policy lessons with theoretical insight. Richly illustrated with examples from across the world, this book will not only be welcomed by all those dedicated to the study of poverty, but, by casting new light on its causes, will also help to develop appropriate measures to tackle it. Professor Maxine Molyneux, Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London, UK While each of the articles in this impressive collection makes an original contribution to the conceptual, empirical and policy analysis of gender and poverty, together they provide a comprehensive overview of the field and an essential resource for all sections of the development community. Professor Sylvia Chant is to be congratulated for bringing together some of the leading thinkers in the field from across the world. This is not only an unprecedented feat of international co-operation but feminist collaboration at its best. Professor Naila Kabeer, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK These diverse, thoughtful essays go far beyond a mere summary of international scholarship. They outline a fascinating and provocative agenda for future policy-relevant research. This book will help redefine and revitalise the field of gender and development. Professor Nancy Folbre, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA In the interests of contextualising (and nuancing) the multiple interrelations between gender and poverty, Sylvia Chant has gathered writings on diverse aspects of the subject from a range of disciplinary and professional perspectives, achieving extensive thematic as well as geographical coverage. This benchmark volume presents women s and men s experiences of gendered poverty with respect to a vast spectrum of intersecting issues including local to global economic transformations, family, age, race , migration, assets, paid and unpaid work, health, sexuality, human rights, and conflict and violence. The Handbook also provides up-to-the-minute reflections on how to theorise, measure and represent the connections between gender and poverty, and to contemplate how gendered poverty is affected and potentially redressed by policy and grassroots interventions. An unprecedented and ambitious blend of conceptual, methodological, empirical and practical offerings from a host of established as well as upcoming scholars and professionals from across the globe lends the volume a distinctive and critical edge. Notwithstanding the broad scope of The International Handbook of Gender and Poverty, one theme in common to most of its 100-plus chapters is the need to en-gender analysis and initiatives to combat poverty and inequality at local, national and international levels. As such, the volume will inspire its readers not only to reflect deeply on poverty and gender injustice, but also to consider what to do about it. This book will be essential reading for all with academic, professional or personal interests in gender, poverty, inequality, development, and social, political and economic change in the contemporary world.

This book explores the issue of gender inequality through the lens of the Millennium Development Goals, particularly the first one of halving world poverty by 2015.

A history of US involvement in late twentieth-century campaigns against global poverty and how they came to focus on women A War on Global Poverty provides a fresh account of US involvement in campaigns to end global poverty in the 1970s and 1980s. From the decline of modernization programs to the rise of microcredit, Joanne Meyerowitz looks beyond familiar histories of development and explains why antipoverty programs increasingly focused on women as the deserving poor. When the United States joined the war on global poverty, economists, policymakers, and activists asked how to change a world in which millions lived in need. Moved to the left by socialists, social democrats, and religious humanists, they rejected the notion that economic growth would trickle down to the poor, and they proposed programs to redress inequities between and within nations. In an emerging “women in development” movement, they positioned women as economic actors who could help lift families and nations out of destitution. In the more conservative 1980s, the war on global poverty turned decisively toward market-based projects in the private sector. Development experts and antipoverty advocates recast women as entrepreneurs and imagined microcredit—with its tiny loans—as a grassroots solution. Meyerowitz shows that at the very moment when the overextension of credit left poorer nations bankrupt, loans to impoverished women came to replace more ambitious proposals that aimed at redistribution. Based on a wealth of sources, A War on Global Poverty looks at a critical transformation in antipoverty efforts in the late twentieth century and points to its legacies today.