Gender and Social Protection in the Developing World

Beyond Mothers and Safety Nets

Rebecca Holmes, Nicola Jones

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781780320441
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Millions of pounds of international development funds are invested annually in social protection programmes to tackle poverty. Poverty is perpetuated by risk and vulnerability, much of which is gendered. Despite this, little attention has been paid to gender-sensitive policy and programme design and implementation. Gender and Social Protection in the Developing World introduces a much-needed gender lens to these debates. Drawing on empirical evidence from poor households and communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the book provides rich insight into the effects of a range of social protection instruments. It concludes that with relatively simple changes to design and with investment in implementation capacity, social protection can contribute to transforming gender relations at the individual, intrahousehold and community levels. With a foreword by Stephen Devereux.

ONE

Key concepts in gender and social protection

Introduction

In recent decades, there have been considerable efforts to investigate the range of factors that may contribute to, and perpetuate, poverty across the life-course. This has resulted in increased understanding of whether and how policies to reduce pervasive poverty and inequality need to be broadened beyond those focused on consumption and income measures alone, to include objectives of social justice and well-being.

Indeed, international development discourse has become increasingly concerned with the multidimensional nature of poverty, including the role of social sources of risk and vulnerability – such as gender inequality, social discrimination, unequal distribution of resources and power and limited citizenship – in shaping how particular individuals and groups experience poverty (Chronic Poverty Research Centre, 2009). The inter- sections between economic and social sources of risks and vulnerabilities are also increasingly recognised as critical problems that need to be addressed in development policies and programmes by enhancing individual capabilities and promoting household and community resilience (Chambers, 1989; Nussbaum, 1995; Sen, 1999).

Gender inequality influences both economic and social sources of risk, at different levels – from the macro to the micro. Much work has been done by feminist economists and social scientists to further our understanding of the links and intersections between gender inequality and poverty, drawing attention to structural inequalities in, for example, the labour market, care economy and household (Chant, 2008; Folbre, 2006; Kabeer, 1994). The application of these theoretical insights to empirical research has generated sound evidence of the role that gender inequality at national, community and household levels plays in contributing to poverty and vulnerability and impeding economic growth. As such, promoting gender equity – which is the process of being fair to women and men – through strategies to compensate for the disadvantages that women face will lead to gender equality – that is, women and men will enjoy equal opportunities, resources and rewards (International Labour Organization, 2007a). Addressing gender inequalities through a range of legislation, policies and programmes, it is argued, is not only imperative from a rights perspective, but will also help to reduce poverty and vulnerability, enhance capabilities and make it possible to meet the objectives of social justice and well-being (Chant, 2010). Unfortunately, however, the evidence base on the gendered dynamics of economic and social risks and vulnerabilities – and their intersection – has been only weakly reflected in social protection theory, policy and programming, despite the importance of gender equity for development outcomes (Molyneux, 2006; Sabates-Wheeler and Kabeer, 2003).

This chapter provides an overview of key concepts and analytical frameworks that are central to our argument about gender and social protection. We begin by discussing what we mean by poverty, vulnerability and resilience, and then reflect on what feminist approaches to development have contributed to these debates. Next, we identify key conceptual frameworks on the role of social protection in reducing poverty and vulnerability, and the ways in which they have shaped our understanding of policy and programming instruments, before finally considering the contributions of feminist theory to social protection policy and programme approaches. We argue that there is a considerable disconnect between these bodies of thought, despite the importance of their integration in practice for poverty reduction and well-being outcomes. Therefore, in the final section of this chapter, we reflect on the range of entry points through which a gender lens could be applied to social protection, and draw on this framework in our analysis of social protection instruments throughout the book.

Concepts of poverty and vulnerability

Until the 1990s, income and/or consumption were the main measures of poverty used by development actors and agencies. Money-metric approaches to measuring poverty were favoured for a number of reasons, including the fact that they are aggregates of multiple inputs, expressed in units that are of immediate and widespread relevance, relatively simple to calculate and theoretically objective (Dessallien, 1999). However, such approaches also have a number of limitations, relating not only to problems such as price and commodity differentials, but also to the exclusion of non-cash factors (Dessallien, 1999). As such, since the 1990s, there has been greater recognition of the multidimensionality of poverty and the importance of non-income indicators at the household and intra-household level (see, for instance, Ravallion, 1992). Indeed, increasingly, concepts and measurements of poverty have expanded to incorporate a view of the underlying structural inequities and inherent disadvantages that the poor face (Chronic Poverty Research Centre, 2009; UN Children’s Fund, 2012). Therefore, even when resources are targeted at the poor, those individuals may not be able to take advantage of them because of structural constraints that impede access to productive assets (such as land and credit) as well as physical, social and human capital assets (such as health, nutrition and education).

The causes of these constraints lie in unequal power relations and weak governance structures, as well as inequities embedded in macro-policy frameworks and distributional systems (Dessallien, 1999). In promoting this perspective, Amartya Sen’s capability approach (Sen, 1985) was pivotal. This approach is concerned with what individuals can do – what they are capable of – with poverty understood as capability deprivation. It focuses on opportunities, equity and well-being through the economic, social, political and cultural dimensions of life. Nussbaum (1995) took the approach further, also recognising the gendered differences of experiences of poverty and vulnerability. These conceptualisations advanced the understanding of poverty as well-being, which includes access to and control over resources, rights and freedoms, and sought to unravel the multiple deprivations and their underlying causes faced by poor households. They also led to advances in measuring aspects of human development in the 1990s (moving beyond income indicators) and, more recently, the Multidimensional Poverty Index of Alkire and Santos (2010), and the Social Institutions and Gender Index of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2012), which is concerned with the role that socio-cultural norms and practices play in shaping women’s economic productivity.

Much research has also been undertaken on the dynamic nature of poverty. Analysts have examined why some households move in and out of poverty while others remain in chronic poverty over generations. They have also explored the importance of life-course and intergenerational poverty (Bradshaw, 2002; Chronic Poverty Research Centre, 2009). Efforts to understand the factors that affect a household’s vulnerability to poverty – that is, the likelihood that a household will become poor (or poorer) in the future – must therefore consider both the exposure to the risk that a household faces and the household’s ability to cope with the risk (Chambers, 1989; Sabates-Wheeler and Devereux, 2008). Risk and vulnerability are critical concepts in social protection. Risks (or shocks and stresses) can be covariate (affecting whole communities, such as floods) or idiosyncratic (affecting individuals or households, such as illness). They are often regarded as exogenous and economic (such as the global financial crisis or food-price spikes), or environmental (such as floods or drought). However, not all adverse events come from outside, nor are they all shocks. Whereas shocks have a rapid onset and are unpredictable, such as sudden illness, stresses have a slower onset and can be more predictable, such as old age, or include events such as weddings or environmental degradation, deforestation and declining soil fertility (Farrington et al., 2007).

Vulnerability refers to the susceptibility of households to the risk of a shock or stress. While not all households are poor, all households may be vulnerable, but vulnerability to risk is influenced by numerous factors, such as individual and household demography, age, dependency ratios, location, social capital, ownership of assets and access to resources. Shocks are also not only economic or social, but also include physical (e.g. ill health), political (e.g. insecurity) and environmental events. Vulnerability is not just a factor of a household’s income level, but is also shaped by underlying structural socio-political factors (Devereux and Sabates-Wheeler, 2004).

In addition to exposure to shocks or stresses, we are concerned with a households coping abilities in such contexts, and here notions of resilience – the ability to recover from or adapt to shocks – are key (Chambers, 1989; Sabates-Wheeler and Devereux, 2008; Drimie and Casale, 2009). Coping strategies have most often been proxied by income, consumption or asset profiles, resulting in an economic approach to vulnerability, risk and risk management (Sabates-Wheeler and Devereux, 2008). However, resilience is more complex than the capacity to cope with economic negative events (Sabates-Wheeler and Devereux, 2008). Indeed, Sen’s capability approach also recognises the importance of social and cultural resources in shaping an individual’s resilience. We return to these themes in our discussion on social protection frameworks below, but first we will review core concepts relating to gender and development.

Concepts of gender in development

What is gender?

Gender is a ‘social relationship, historically varying, and encompassing elements of labour, power, emotion and language; it crosses individual subjectivities, institutions, culture and language’ (Orloff, 2009:1). It is a socially constructed concept, referring to women’s and men’s different roles and responsibilities determined by social, economic, political and cultural factors. These are interpreted differently in different societies and cultures, but in many contexts they translate into inequality in resources, responsibilities, opportunities and constraints, especially for women (Pearson et al., 1984; Razavi and Miller, 1995). As Kabeer and Subrahmanian (1996) suggest, not all women are poor, and not all poor people are women, but all women have the potential to suffer from discrimination.

Feminist theory and practice have sought to explain and change systems of difference whereby ‘women’ and ‘men’ are socially constituted and positioned in relations of hierarchy. However, this is a complex endeavour. As with the poverty debate mentioned earlier, income poverty has often also dominated discussions on gender inequality. Increasingly, however, discussions are focusing on whether tackling income poverty is the most effective strategy for solving women’s disadvantage. More ‘robust’ indicators of women’s poverty include access to land, agency in decision making, legal rights within the family, vulnerability to violence, self-respect and dignity (Johnsson-Latham, 2004), as well as overwork, time deficiency, dependency and powerlessness (Chant, 1997; Kabeer, 1997; Sen, 1999). Such inequalities cannot be remedied by income alone, as they lie at the heart of deeper inequalities entrenched in patriarchal structures and socio-cultural norms (Molyneux and Razavi, 2002).

Why is gender important for development?

There is a dual rationale for promoting gender equality, and it is vital that both rationales feature as policy priorities. First, equality between women and men – equal rights, op...