Source:Chinese Women's Research Network | Release Date:2016-9-20-
Gender issues deserve more concern than class differences. For men, there are only class issues, but no gender issues. Male poverty depends solely on fair division of power by the political class. However, women have to break through the gender squeeze and then attempt to move to a higher class.
Gender inequality gives rise to a larger wealthy gap between men and women, and this gap cannot be changed without gender equality. Therefore, poverty alleviation without gender awareness will lead to few improvements for women.
As scholar Nancy Qian said in her article "Missing Women and the Price of Tea in China", it is the increase in women's income compared to men's, which has lead to an improvement in women's situation.
In other words, the enhancement of relative income means an improvement in women's status (bargaining power), directly changing the degree of gender inequality.
As a result, in terms of poverty alleviation, authorities should distinguish between different gender groups: the male poor and the female poor. As mentioned in the article, if there is an emphasis solely on improving the situation of the poor without gender consciousness, women's situation will be unlikely to change. Instead, if authorities focus their attention on female rights and interests, it will be beneficial to everyone.
The author is Wu Huali, an M.D. of Economics from Fudan University.