2013年-世界发展银行全球_Gender_Inequality_in_Multidimensional_Welfare_Deprivation_in_West_Africa___The_Case_of_Burkina_Faso_and_Togo_39页_580kb

Summary of "Gender Inequality in Multidimensional Welfare Deprivation in West Africa: The Case of Burkina Faso and Togo"

Core Content

This paper examines gender inequality in multidimensional welfare deprivation in Burkina Faso and Togo, using household surveys to analyze six key dimensions of wellbeing: housing, basic utilities, assets, education, employment, and access to credit. The study highlights the importance of addressing gender inequality through a multidimensional lens, moving beyond traditional monetary poverty measures.

Main Findings

• Gender Inequality Across Dimensions: Women are consistently more deprived than men in all six dimensions of wellbeing, indicating systemic gender disparities.
• Country Differences:
  • In Burkina Faso, individuals are the most deprived in education.
  • In Togo, the reverse is true, with men being more deprived in education.
• Regional Disparities:
  • Both countries show higher deprivation in rural areas compared to urban areas.
  • In Burkina Faso, urban areas have significantly better access to improved water and sanitation.
  • In Togo, urban areas have better access to electricity and improved water.
• Contributing Dimensions:
  • In Burkina Faso, employment is the main contributor to gender inequality.
  • In Togo, the combined effect of assets, access to credit, and employment accounts for the majority of the total contribution to gender inequality.
• Correlation with Age:
  • In Burkina Faso, there is a positive correlation between multidimensional deprivation and women's age.
  • In Togo, no significant correlation is observed between deprivation and age.

Key Dimensions and Their Significance

2.1 Housing

• Housing is a critical component of material wellbeing.
• Deprivation in housing includes poor quality of walls, floors, and roofs, as well as overcrowding.
• In Burkina Faso, only 12.3% of households have durable walls, with rural areas at 2.3% and urban areas at 46.6%.
• In Togo, 36.3% of households have durable walls, with rural areas at 15% and urban areas at 72.6%.

2.2 Basic Utilities

• Access to electricity, water, sanitation, and telephone lines is essential for wellbeing.
• Burkina Faso and Togo lag behind Sub-Saharan Africa in these areas.
• Electricity access is lowest in Burkina Faso (14.6% nationally) and Togo (20% nationally) compared to 32.4% for the region.
• Access to improved water is similar between Burkina Faso (79% nationally) and Togo (61% nationally), but both lag behind the regional average of 61.1%.

2.3 Assets

• Asset ownership, particularly durable goods, is a proxy for chronic poverty.
• In most African surveys, asset ownership is measured at the household level.
• The study emphasizes the importance of analyzing asset distribution to understand gender inequality within households.

2.4 Education

• Education is a key dimension of wellbeing and a target of the second and third MDGs.
• Burkina Faso and Togo show gender inequality in education, with higher enrollment ratios for males than females.
• In Togo, the gross enrollment ratio in primary education was 119% for males and 111% for females in 2009, while in secondary education, it dropped to 54% and 28%, respectively.

2.5 Employment

• Employment is a crucial source of income and a dimension of wellbeing.
• The female labor force participation rate is high in both countries, but employment ratios are lower for women than for men.
• In Burkina Faso, the employment to population ratio for women is 75.7% compared to 86.7% for men.
• In Togo, the ratio is slightly more balanced, with both sexes at around 75%.

2.6 Access to Credit

• Access to credit is an important dimension of wellbeing, often overlooked in poverty assessments.
• In Burkina Faso and Togo, only 10.8% and 9.2% of women respectively have accounts at formal financial institutions, which is much lower than the regional average of 21.5%.
• Access to credit can improve household income and consumption smoothing, but it may also lead to indebtedness, especially if not used wisely.

Methodology

• The study combines the inertia approach and the counting method proposed by Alkire and Foster (2007, 2011).
• The inertia approach is used to aggregate indicators within each dimension into a deprivation index, using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA).
• The counting method is used to estimate individual deprivations across dimensions.
• The methodology allows for a more nuanced analysis of poverty and gender inequality, capturing the joint distribution of deprivations rather than relying on a single index.

Conclusion

• The paper underscores the importance of a multidimensional approach to poverty analysis, especially in understanding gender inequality.
• It highlights the need for more comprehensive frameworks that consider non-monetary aspects of wellbeing.
• The findings suggest that while both countries face significant gender inequality in multidimensional deprivation, the nature and contributing dimensions differ.
• The study contributes to the global discourse on poverty and gender by linking it to international development goals and providing empirical evidence for policy interventions.