Gender and poverty in Brazil

Maria Salet Ferreira Novellino, National School of Statistical Science
Victor Hugo de Carvalho Gouvêa, Fluminense Federal University

The studies on feminization of poverty have the following characteristics: they are concerned exclusively with women head of families; the data collected and analysed are related to household income; and their purpose is to support public policies for women head of families concerned with their empowerment (understood as training to work force). However, we criticize this approach arguing that poverty is not only a lack of decent income but also lack of the opportunities and choices most basic to human life. The expected achievement of this work is to outline a framework to study gender and poverty that could support public policies concerned with to enhance the social participation of poor women as well as to assess the level of social participation of Brazilian poor women.