Households in developing countries rely on a variety of strategies to cope with shocks. While the importance of social safety nets in protecting impoverished households is widely accepted, the role of gender, in underlying vulnerabilities and response to shocks, remains largely ignored.
In their 2020 Conference Brief Gender, Shocks, and Resilience, IFPRI’s Neha Kumar and Agnes Quisumbing highlight differences between men’s and women’s exposure to shocks and their respective coping mechanisms, looking at factors such as consumption patterns; the labor market, migration, remittances; asset accumulation; and access to savings, credit, and insurance.
The researchers make the case for approaching resiliency-building through a gender-sensitive lens and found that:
- Women are more vulnerable to poverty traps because they generally own fewer assets than men. Access to savings and credit play an important role in women’s asset building abilities.
- Both conditional and unconditional transfers can effectively build women’s resiliency to future shocks.
- Women migrants can be particularly at risk for gender-based violence and harassment; it is important to enact policies and legal protections that create a safe working environment.
- More research needs to be done on the design of insurance products that meet the different needs of men and women.
