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The association between income distribution and measures of health has been well established such that societies with smaller income differences between rich and poor people have increased longevity (Wilkinson, 1996). While more egalitarian societies tend to have better health, in most developed societies people lower down the social scale have death rates two to four times higher than those nearer the top. Inequities in income distribution and the consequent disparities in health status are particularly problematic for many women, including single mothers, older women, and women of colour. The feminization of poverty is the rapidly increasing proportion of women in the adult poverty population (Doyal, 1995; Fraser, 1987).

Concern with the size of poverty in any nation leads to a broader question: What does it mean to be poor in a rich society? More specifically, what does it mean for a family, and particularly its children, to live in a state of poverty within a prosperous society? To begin to answer these questions, we must look at poverty in the context of its opposite, plenty. As members of modern societies, we use a wide range of goods and services to effect our participation in social relations and to create and sustain our sense of social identity. The mainstream standard of living defines the average American's family resources that fall sufficiently short of the mainstream as deprivation, precarious subsistence, exclusion – in short, poverty. Our common cultural understanding is that we cannot play our social roles or participate meaningfully in our communities without the basic material resources necessary to carry out our activities. One way or another, each of us has to “make a living” in order to “have a life.” The roles and activities that define participation are age-graded – child, teenager, young adult, mature adult, senior citizen. For any one age, these common cultural understandings allow people to pass judgment on their own rank and that of others in a continuum from destitution to unseemly affluence, based on what kind of participation they can effect.

This study investigates female labor force participation (FLFP) in Nigeria, over the period 1990–2020. It analyzes the effect of some poverty indices on FLFP, thereby contributing to the ongoing debate on female labor participation, particularly as it relates to household poverty and its alleviation. The study sources data from World Bank Data Bank and employs autoregressive distributive lags after confirming the stationarity of all variables of interest. While there is no long-run relationship among the variables of interest, the results from the short-run estimate show that one year lagged FLFP, fertility (family size), total unemployment and gender ratio in labor participation are poverty indices that positively influence female labor participation. On the other, female unemployment, male unemployment and GDP growth rate are negative determinants. However, female education and household income per capita as poverty indices are insignificant determinants of female labor participation for the period under study. These findings are important for government/policy-makers in Nigeria to develop a policy framework that can improve poverty in the country as well encourage FLFP in the country since their contributions have meaningful impact in alleviating household poverty and on the entire economy.

This chapter examines discourses and social practices at individual, community, and institutional levels related to non-majority Vietnamese ethnic girls’ access to and participation in secondary school. This critical analysis utilizes Sen's framework of capabilities to illustrate differences in discourse and social practice that exist around poverty, and the ways in which gendered relations and ethnic traditions are intertwined with the discourse and practices of poverty to affect girls’ choices and well-being in and through secondary education. We particularly draw on girls’ and their parents’ constructions of these issues as they negotiate and are affected by them. We argue that strategies must move beyond the discourse that ethnic traditions and gendered relations are barriers to girls’ education to consider the inequalities and lack of capabilities that perpetuate poverty and unequal gendered relations for non-majority ethnic groups in societies.

Trafficking in women is among the most serious human rights challenges. Extant studies of the media images of trafficked women suggest that these images emphasize women’s victimization and contribute to the reproduction of existing gender inequalities and power relations. In this case study of Moldovan media and scientific discourse, the authors sought to identify the images of trafficked women that are presented in the print media, on the one hand, and the scientific discourse, on the other. The authors also asked whether those images portray trafficked women in a stereotypical manner. The findings of this chapter revealed that the most prevalent images in both discourses are trafficked women as victims, commodities, and slaves. Both media and scientific discourses include gender oppression, domestic violence, and poverty as dimensions of the victim image. However, these three aspects of the victim image are treated more comprehensively by the scientific discourse. Some of the most prominent differences between the two types of discourses are the absence of women’s agency in the media discourse and absence of the men’s nature as a dimension of the victim image in the scientific discourse. The authors conclude by suggesting that, despite these differences, the images present in both types of discourse could be used to justify policies that would limit the migration of women but fail to effectively address the root causes of sex trafficking in women.

The following ethnographic study was conducted to better understand the site-specific, qualitative impact of organizational, taken-for-granted assumptions and practices regarding gender and family life in the reproduction of on-the-ground gender inequality. More specifically, this case study considers the consequences of organizational assumptions consistent with Bem’s (1993) three “lenses of gender” – androcentrism, essentialism, and polarization – on direct service provision for homeless clients in a small, faith-based, social service provider.

Interview and participant-observation data were gathered during time spent volunteering with Integrity Intervention (pseudonym): a small liberal Methodist outreach ministry for the homeless. Data collection was guided by the following question: How do Integrity Intervention’s cultural models (or “schemas”) for gender and family life shape the ways the organization becomes a gendered social space?

I find that expectations for client behavior were deeply gendered, in a manner consistent with the “lenses of gender.” Additionally, normative expectations for subordinate masculinities were also informed and crosscut by race and class marginalization. Ultimately, my findings suggest that the “lenses of gender” may be imbued with class and race-specific interpretive meaning. I delineate forms of site-specific gendered, racialized, and classed cultural schemata for understanding poverty and homelessness, and explain how they ultimately work together to preclude inclusive and gender-equitable service provision.

This study is limited to providers and participants in one particular nonprofit organization.

The conclusions of the study bear implications for understanding the various forms through which gender inequality is reproduced – particularly in settings of faith-based social service provision.