&
Realities
Myths
Myth: Low-income women are not impor-
Reality: Much of the progress against
tant to their country’s economic growth. By definition, they have their hands full doing low-skill
work to survive.
hunger in the past 25 years (43 percent)
can be attributed directly to additional years
of education for girls and young women.
Researchers for the International Food Policy
Research Institute (IFPRI) found that an
additional 12 percent of the reduction in hunger
is due to improvements in women’s status in
society. Sending girls to school actually did
more to reduce malnutrition among children
than having more food available.
Myth: Simply opening all jobs to both men
Reality: An equal opportunity approach
UN Photo/Lamphay Inthakoun
Women weed their rice fields in Mokpon village, Bokeo
Province, Laos. Many of the world’s low-income women
work as farmers.
Women who have completed fifth grade or
eighth grade, even if they are as impoverished
as their less educated neighbors, are more
knowledgeable, confident, and resourceful.
They can and do seize opportunities to improve
economic conditions for themselves, their
families, their communities, and their countries.
can bring significant economic development
only if there is a relatively equitable “playing
field.” Identifying barriers to women’s actual
participation in various economic spheres—
and strategies to overcome those barriers—is
essential. Barriers are often quite concrete. They
may include disproportionate responsibility for
time-consuming cooking tasks, collecting water,
making clothes, or other household chores;
less access to resources; less authority to make
decisions; more restricted travel due to safety
concerns; more responsibility to care for elderly
family members and children; and the list goes
on.
and women is enough to ensure that women
have equal economic opportunity.
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