As a firm that focuses on market research, polls, and surveys among others, we hope to bring you insights into this week’s article which shares data on poverty levels versus gender.
Women globally earn around 37% less than men in similar roles, according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2021 from the World Economic Forum. In confirmation, UN Women and UNDP projected that, globally, 388 million women and girls would be living in extreme poverty, compared to 372 million men and boys in 2022. Coming closer home, the Pilot National Multidimensional Poverty Index for Botswana (2021) by Statistics Botswana and UNDP revealed that ‘poverty levels are higher among female-headed households than the male-headed ones, at 55% and 45% respectively.’ It is also important to note here, that the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) also takes into consideration other non-income deprivations experienced by the poor such as education, health, housing, sanitation and access to clean drinking water, not just the monetary indicators.
One of our surveys in partnership with Meeticks Africa, confirmed the same phenomena. Of the 224 respondents that said they were not managing from the income they received, 78.8% were females, 20.7% are males and 0.5% preferred not to say their gender. The last group of 156 respondents stated that they were really struggling to make ends meet and of these, 84.6% were females and 15.4% were males.
Most of the respondents who were struggling confirmed their income was from salaries followed by small business owners, then students’ allowances and lastly those that did not have a regular source of income. This confirms that these female respondents are earning low salaries for those employed, and those in business are definitely not doing well hence the struggle.
These insights are critical for organisations or businesses that want to develop interventions in the fight to reduce poverty levels in the country. For more insights such as these or tailored to your market niche, we are here to make data make sense for you.
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