CNA Briefing Note: Policy to Address Global Feminization of Poverty

This report addresses the global feminization of poverty, defining it as the disproportionate increase in poverty levels among women and female-headed households. It highlights the gender inequality deeply ingrained in society as a major factor, leading to women's lack of access to critical resour...Read More

Running head: GLOBAL FEMINIZATION OF POVERTY
GLOBAL FEMINIZATION OF POVERTY
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1GLOBAL FEMINIZATION OF POVERTY
A. Briefing note:
1. Introduction of the issue
The feminization of poverty can be defined as an increase in the levels of poverty among
women. It is the change that in the levels of poverty biased against women or female headed
households (Anyanwu, 2014). More specifically it is the proportion of poverty between male and
female. According to UN WOMEN, the majority of people belonging from the 1.5 billion people
who are living on 1 dollar a day or even lesser than that are women (Sharpe & Swanson, 2016).
In addition to it, it is important to mention the gap between women and men who are caught in
the cycle of poverty have continued to become wide. The paper aims to discuss the similar issue,
Global feminization of poverty along with a discussion of policies to address this specific global;
problem. The paper will also provide an advocacy to achieve the desired policy solution.
Women across the globe are living in poverty who are denied access to critical resources
including land, credit and inheritance. The issue is among all the people who are living in the
poverty are women. Women are experiencing poverty in much higher rate than men and it is
expected in coming years the future face of poverty is going to be only women (Jacobson, 2018).
The reason women are the faced with poverty in higher rate than men is due to several
factors. The major factor associated with this social issue is the fact that society is deeply
ingrained with gender inequality. The gender inequality for years haveraised various issues that
result today as global feminization of poverty (De Vita, Mari&Poggesi, 2014).Women do not
get the social position and power as men due to which they do not get opportunity to improve
their social status. Women’s labor is often unrewarded as well as unrecognized. Priority is not
given to their healthcare and nutritional needs. Also, they are lacking sufficient access to

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education and support services. It is not unseen that their participation in decision making at
home as well as in the community goes unnoticed. Domestic violence is the cause for majority of
ill or disabled women population. Home and family reasons are the significant factors that causes
obstacles for the going out of their house for work. Even the small proportion of women who get
the opportunity of seeking job they are the victim of gender inequality (Saunders & Nedelec,
2014).
Poverty and poor health are interlinked across the globe. The poor health of poor people
globally are rooted in political, social and economic injustices. Poor health is both causes and
consequence of poverty. Women living in poverty lack the basic necessities that leads to making
the basic amenities priority. They seek health services less due to lack of economic stability.
Also, lack of education makes them unaware of the importance of health and often they have to
put their health at risk in order to feed their children. All these reasons make them put their
health as a least priority aspect making it a global health equity.
The issues of health inequity is certainly different in developed countries. In developing
countries, there exists a health disparities for several reasons including social inequality as the
major reason. Firstly, the definition of poverty varies between developed and developing
country. Problems such as unequal distribution of income, power and wealth are observed to a
very low or no rate which is highly prominent in the developing countries. This leads to poverty
and marginalized of groups or individual including gender as a factor. Women in the developing
countries are faced with challenges such as education, unemployment, low income and
discrimination, domestic violence and many more in much higher rate than developed countries
that influence their health. Therefore, these problems are experienced differently in developed
countries and developed countries (Piketty&Saez, 2014).

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2. A discussion of policies/actions to address this global problem.
The prevalence of living in the poverty is not mere circumstances or coincidence. Also, it
is not only a women issue but also human concern. Feminized poverty is inclusive of far more
concern than individual suffering or income inequality. It can be found that the issue has evolved
from generation after generation of vicious cycle of poverty and hopelessness, threatening well-
being of women and health and their families across the globe (Roy, 2015). The issue has
become a giant global problem that demands serious attention. The policy to end poverty
focusing on women and girls will include the following factors:
1. Education: an education provides the girl with the opportunity to go to college,
participate in the political decisions and get good jobs. Also, investing on girl’s
education have the scope of low infant deaths and maternal deaths.
2. Empowering women to engage in their communities: women by engaging in community
with community facilitator helps to educate their communities on significant aspects
such as nutrition, health, education, hygiene and sanitary habits.
3. The policy needs to recognize the unique challenges of women: the problems of women
living in poverty faced several issues such as lack of drinking water, electricity and
sanitary pads and many more.
4. Working with men and boys: there is no sustainable solution to fight gender inequality
by ignoring men and boys. The harmful gender norms leads to poor health outcomes
that lead to gender-based violence and other practices. Therefore, the policy encourage
women working more with men and boys beginning with fathers, husbands, brothers
and other men of women’s lives.

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The above discussed ways to solving the global feminization of poverty is outcome of the
gap in the knowledge and misinterpreted knowledge. The states, non-government bodies,
therefore, fillthe knowledge gap. Educating both the genders by acknowledging loudly various
issues of women, specifically in developing country should be encouraged. There is a lack of
comprehensive information regarding women and girls that needs to be addressed. This will
cease the hindrances in achieving gender equality.
3. A policy/advocacy plan for CNA to achieve the desired policy solutions
In order to contribute in eliminating the global health issue, Canadian Nursing Association
(CNA) can play certain part. The advices that would be suggested to CNA are as follows:
1. CNA can advocate globally shaping policy and strengthening Nursing’s influence. Since
they are pioneer in their field and they have the potential of brining change.
2. CNA coordinate nursing actions by providing essential services and knowledge to the
women about their basic needs and important parts (Nagle eta al., 2014). Since educating
women is one of the significant parts, Nurses with most committed code of conduct are
the best people to do this task.
3. By interacting closely with women regarding their healthcare including patients, patient’s
family and population. CNA is a specialized industry they are qualified for spreading
awareness with the medical advices to the women population can help them getting
healthcare education.
4. CNA can develop policies for the women below poverty lines with special benefits that
would help encourage them to seek help. Women do not seek help mostly due to not
being supported. Therefore, CNA can develop policies that will act as encouragement by
targeting the group who avoid getting support with their past record.

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5. By conducting meetings, campaigns and awareness through physical and virtual platform
in order to make the other nursing associations work towards the same goal. Since CNA
is highly associated with world class stakeholders and organizations, they can implement
changes initially firstly in their home country.
6. Providing training and job opportunities to the women belonging in poverty as well as
socially backward family. It has been one of the successful method of implementing and
creating opportunities for the women and CNA has the best of healthcare workforce to do
this job (Gould, O. N., Dupuis-Blanchard & MacLennan, (2015).

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References:
Anyanwu, J. C. (2014). Marital status, household size and poverty in Nigeria: evidence from the
2009/2010 survey data. African Development Review, 26(1), 118-137.
De Vita, L., Mari, M., &Poggesi, S. (2014). Women entrepreneurs in and from developing
countries: Evidences from the literature. European Management Journal, 32(3), 451-460.
Gould, O. N., Dupuis-Blanchard, S., & MacLennan, A. (2015). Canadian nursing students and
the care of older patients: How is geriatric nursing perceived?. Journal of Applied
Gerontology, 34(6), 797-814.
Jacobson, J. L. (2018). Women’s health: The price of poverty. In The Health Of Women (pp. 3-
32). Routledge.
Nagle, L. M., Crosby, K., Frisch, N., Borycki, E. M., Donelle, L., Hannah, K. J., ...&Shaben, T.
(2014, July). Developing entry-to-practice nursing informatics competencies for
registered nurses. In Nursing Informatics (pp. 356-363).

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Piketty, T., &Saez, E. (2014). Inequality in the long run. Science, 344(6186), 838-843.
Roy, A. (2015). In her name: the gender order of global poverty management. In Wages of
Empire (pp. 36-47). Routledge.
Saunders, S. L., &Nedelec, B. (2014). What work means to people with work disability: a
scoping review. Journal of occupational rehabilitation, 24(1), 100-110.
Sharpe, R. V., & Swanson, K. (2016). Poverty in global perspective. The Wiley Blackwell
encyclopedia of gender and sexuality studies, 1-6.