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BOX 1.4Gender and poverty: What do we know?Poverty remains a serious global challenge. There has been progress in reducing extreme povertysince 1990, but 1 billion people—or around 15 per cent of the world’s population—were still living inextreme poverty in 2011. It is unknown how many of those living in poverty are women and girls. 92In part this is because the headcount measure of extreme poverty ($1.25 a day) is estimated usingaggregate household level income or consumption data, which makes it difficult to estimateindividual rates and hence gender differences in the incidence and severity of poverty.In the absence of data on individual poverty rates, a proxy measure of women’s risk of poverty hasbeen developed where the percentage of working age women living in poor households (definedas the bottom 20 per cent of households) is compared to the percentage of working age men insuch households. 93 Using this measure, as Figure 1.5 shows, women are more likely to live in povertyin 41 out of 75 countries with data. Many factors contribute to women’s heightened vulnerability topoverty, including unequal access to paid work, lower earnings, lack of social protection and limitedaccess to assets, including land and property (see Chapters 2 and 3).An analysis of the characteristics of poor households indicates that countries where women are atgreater risk of poverty also tend to have an over-representation of ‘female-only’ households (i.e.,those with no male adults) among the bottom 20 per cent. This suggests a greater risk of povertyamong separated women, widows and single mothers, including heads of household without amale partner. 94Even where women and men are both just as likely to live in a poor household, women are morelikely to be deprived in other key areas of well-being, such as education, and less likely to havean independent source of income through paid work (see Annex 1), which can result in the unevendistribution of power and resources within the household.Latin America and the Caribbean is the only region where analysis of the poorest householdsby gender composition has been done over time. It shows not only that women outnumber menamong those living in households below the poverty line but also that the proportion of womencompared to men in poor households has increased over time: from 108.7 women for every 100men in 1997 to 117.2 women for every 100 men in 2012. This upward trend has taken place in thecontext of declining poverty rates for the region as a whole: 44.8 per cent of people lived below thepoverty line in 1997 compared to 32.7 per cent in 2012. New social policies directed to the poorestsegments of the population have contributed to reductions in poverty in the region, but their impactvaries depending on the reach of programmes and the size of transfers. 95 Furthermore, the poorestwomen still face major barriers in accessing decent work. Greater efforts are therefore needed forthe realization of women’s rights to and at work if they are to benefit equally from economic growthand poverty reduction.45