Men tend to spend more of their income on consumer items. Therefore, if development projects start with women, there is greater net benefit to the community. There were many in Nairobi who took DAWN's vision back to the United States and other countries and began to put it to work. They did not have to look far to find their constituency in the United States. The ranks of the very poor in the United States are increasingly being filled with women from Third World countries.
Popular myth has it that male workers make up the majority of the refugee population.
Increasingly, however, figures show that women are the predominant sex among refugees in the United States. They enter as refugees and immigrants, seeking a better standard of living and a future for their children but they often find themselves trapped in low-wage service jobs, barely making enough money to subsist. In addition, they must cope with being in a foreign country and being forced to speak an unfamiliar language. Third World women are industry's best labor bargain, wherever they are found. Refugee Women in Development is an organization that works with refugee communities in Washington D.C. which is attempting to reverse this trend.