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Data collected for refugee registration and to target humanitarian assistance include information about household composition and demographics that can be used to identify gender-based vulnerabilities. This paper combines the microdata collected by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to register refugees with data from its Home Visit surveys to analyze income poverty rates among refugees with a gender lens. It finds distinguishing between different types of male and female principal applicant (PA) households is important in the setting of Syrian refugees in Jordan. Poverty rates for couples with children do not differ by gender of the PA but for other household types poverty rates are higher for those with female PAs. Households formed because of the unpredictable dynamics of forced displacement, such as sibling households, unaccompanied children, and single caregivers, are extremely vulnerable, especially if the principal applicant is a woman or a girl.

Intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence against women in conflict and non-conflict settings, but in conflict settings it often receives less attention than other forms of gender-based violence, such as conflict-related sexual violence. Using data from the 2008 and 2013 Domestic Violence module of the Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey spatially linked to the Boko Haram actor file of the Armed Conflict Location and Events Database, this paper employs a kernel-based difference-in-difference model to examine the effect of the Boko Haram insurgency on women's experience of physical and sexual intimate partner violence. It also examines the effect of the Boko Haram insurgency on women's experience of controlling behavior from a husband or partner, women's autonomy in household decision making, and their control over their own earnings. The paper finds that the Boko Haram insurgency is associated with slower progress toward preventing and eliminating women's experiences of physical and sexual intimate partner violence. Controlling behaviors from husbands/partners and reductions in women's autonomy in household decision making are heightened in locations that are impacted by the Boko Haram insurgency, indicating that the Boko Haram insurgency adversely affects women's agency and exacerbates behaviors that are often precursors to intimate partner violence.

There are significant differences in labor market outcomes by gender in Tunisia. These gender differences differ substantially in the richer coastal and eastern regions and the poorer southern and western regions. This chapter uses the 2014 Tunisia Labor Market Panel Survey (TLMPS) to examine the characteristics of male and female labor market participants in the lagging southern, western, and central regions, and in the leading regions. The chapter also discusses results from an econometric analysis of the factors that influence monthly wages and the probability of employment for men and women respectively. Our results show that gender plays a huge role in labor market outcomes: women are less likely to participate in the labor force, are more likely to be unemployed, and receive lower wages. In addition, youth and educated women in lagging regions are particularly disadvantaged because they are less likely to find a job and may not have the option of moving to places where employment prospects are better. Moreover, our results suggest that wage discrimination against women is prevalent outside the leading region in Tunisia.

While central notions around agency are well established in academic literature, progress on the empirical front has faced major challenges around developing tractable measures and data availability. This has limited our understanding about patterns of agency and empowerment of women across countries. Measuring key dimensions of women's agency and empowerment is complex, but feasible and important. This paper systematically explores what can be learned from Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data for fifty-eight countries, representing almost 80 percent of the female population of developing countries. It is the first such empirical investigation. The findings quantify some important correlations. Completing secondary education and beyond has consistently large positive associations, underlining the importance of going beyond primary schooling. There appear to be positive links with poverty reduction and economic growth, but clearly this alone is not enough. Context specificity and multidimension...

China has achieved high economic growth for over 20 years but still has a sizeable number of people living in poverty. Using large household survey data, this paper attempts to present a comprehensive picture and identify the main determinants of poverty in both the urban and rural sectors. It concludes that despite rising urban poverty in recent years, rural poverty is still predominant in China. The slow progress in reducing poverty has been caused by rising inequality, particularly the urban–rural divide and interregional inequality. In sharp contrast to the government’s optimism in poverty reduction, this paper shows that poverty in China is still serious and has become increasingly more difficult to reduce. Although China may easily meet the international development target of reducing poverty by half from 1990 to 2015, the battle against poverty is far from over, even

During the course of the late 1980s and early 1990s, improvements in health and education and progress in poverty reduction ground to a halt, or began to be eroded, in many developing regions and in the transition economies. In 1996 the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) agreed the International Development Targets (IDTs) shown in Box 11.1, reflecting the concern of development agencies and their developing country partners about these trends. This chapter considers whether these targets are attainable.

This paper assesses the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) Gender-Related Development Index (GDI). Although the GDI has increased attention on gender equality in human development, it suffers from several limitations. A major problem is that it conflates relative gender equality with absolute levels of human development and thus gives no information on comparative gender inequality among countries. Using the same indicators as the GDI, the paper constructs a Relative Status of Women (RSW) index, which demonstrates how using a measure of gender equality that abstracts from levels of development results in very different country rankings. However, the RSW is not an ideal measure of gender inequality. The GDI indicators are not the most appropriate ones for measuring gender inequality and hence both the RSW and the GDI have limited validity. The paper concludes by offering a conceptual framework that provides the basis for an alternative measure of gender inequality.

Metadata only record As part of the World Bank's poverty reduction strategy, Poverty Assessments have been carried out for a number of countries which analyse who the poor are, the causes of poverty and poverty reduction policies. This article reviews what can be learnt from the twenty-five Assessments prepared for countries in sub-Saharan Africa up to 1996. Whilst other factors are acknowledged in identifying the poor, the Assessments over-emphasize income-poverty defined against an inevitably arbitrary poverty line. The Assessments are shown to be weak in addressing the causes of poverty, often ignoring the historical perspective, political context, and international dimensions such as debt and commodity price trends, focusing instead on the lack of growth in recent years as the main cause of poverty. Weak understanding of the causes of poverty undermines the basis for country-specific poverty reduction strategies: policy recommendations are usually an uncritical presentation of the World Bank's three-pronged strategy of growth, investment in human capital and social safety nets. Although the Assessments do not explicitly acknowledge the point, they suggest that the number of poor people in Africa will continue to rise; nor is there any basis for confidence that policies are being put in place to redress the situation.

The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD has set target rates of poverty incidence and levels of a number of human development indicators as goals to be met with the aid of development assistance by the years 2005 and 2015. In this paper we assess the likelihood that these goals will be met. We estimate future levels of poverty and human development indicators, using econometric models that capture the past relationship between per capita economic growth and both poverty and human development indicators. Our models use existing projections of future economic growth for the world's major developing regions. We find that for some developing regions achievement of the DAC poverty targets depends critically on the pattern as well as the rate of growth, as targets are only met when high or medium levels of income equality accompany growth. The prospects for achieving the human development targets, particularly gender equity ones, are good for most regions. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper aims to operationalise the G20 commitment to ensure that the benefits of global growth are shared with Low Income Countries. Growth is central to poverty reduction and the achievement of MDGs, and in developing countries it is episodic and volatile. However, while the current LICs have poor growth histories, the countries that started off the 1960s as LICs have had virtually the same average growth rates as other country groups. We review the evidence connecting long-run growth and growth accelerations and collapses to six areas of policy: trade, skills development, macro-stability, financial development, infrastructure investment and human development. Growth strategies have to be developed and owned by LIC governments and societies and they need to be tailored to individual country needs. However, there are some things which the G20 can do to help. We group these actions under three headings: mitigating downturns, boosting underlying growth rates and developing institutions and knowledge. A final annex describes how Korea’s spectacular growth strategy can be viewed through these lenses.

The 2012 World Development Report recognized that expanding women's agency - their ability to make decisions and take advantage of opportunities is key to improving their lives as well as the world. This report represents a major advance in global knowledge on this critical front. The vast data and thousands of surveys distilled in this report cast important light on the nature of constraints women and girls continue to face globally. This report identifies promising opportunities and entry points for lasting transformation, such as interventions that reach across sectors and include life-skills training, sexual and reproductive health education, conditional cash transfers, and mentoring. It finds that addressing what the World Health Organization has identified as an epidemic of violence against women means sharply scaling up engagement with men and boys. The report also underlines the vital role information and communication technologies can play in amplifying women's voices, expanding their economic and learning opportunities, and broadening their views and aspirations. The World Bank Group's twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity demand no less than the full and equal participation of women and men, girls and boys, around the world.