fifth section shows how various subsets of questions on individually owned assets can be incorporated with a minimum of effort and cost into existing multi-topic household surveys, using three examples: the 1998-99 Ghana LSMS, the 2000 Guatemala LSMS, and the 1997-98 Vietnam LSMS questionnaires. This analysis shows that it is feasible to add a minimal set of questions to enable calculation of the gender asset gap, but adding a series of extra questions will permit a more satisfactory and nuanced analysis of asset acquisition, use, disposition, and valuation – information that is critical for policies promoting gender equality, poverty reduction and economic growth.

# **2.  The Importance of the Gender Asset Gap for Policies and Programs**

Individual level data on assets is obviously essential for specific programs concerned with assets, such as land redistribution or titling programs or those promoting home ownership. But individual level data on asset ownership by gender can illuminate a number of key development policy issues including the empowerment of women, poverty reduction, social protection, and the promotion of pro-poor economic growth.

Gender inequality has traditionally been measured in terms of gaps in men’s and women’s opportunities and outcomes. Considerable attention has been given in the literature, for example, to the gaps in men’s and women’s educational opportunities and schooling outcomes, to gender gaps in mortality and morbidity, to the gender wage gap, and to gaps in women’s political participation and representation. Indeed, the UN and other multilateral agencies use several of these indicators for tracking progress toward the Millennium Development Goal of gender equality and women’s empowerment. Yet, the gender asset gap arguably provides a much firmer basis for understanding gender economic inequality and women’s empowerment than just a focus on income or wages and may be a more powerful indictor of progress than others toward MDG3. Besides being a measure of opportunities (i.e., through the ability to generate income or additional wealth) or outcomes (net wealth), ownership of assets is critically important to women’s bargaining power and hence their economic empowerment.

Asset ownership influences the “fallback” position of each spouse in negotiations over key household and family decisions and hence the exit options available to each (Quisumbing and Hallman 2006, Doss 1996). A number of surveys from South Asia found that women who owned land had greater say in household decision-making than women without land (Mason 1998, Allendorf 2007, Agarwal 1998, 2002a). In Colombia, Friedemann-Sanchez (2006) found that women use property and social assets to negotiate for the right to work, control their own income, move freely, and live without spousal violence.

The recognition of the gender asset gap as a critical indicator of women’s empowerment has influenced several recent policy initiatives. The UN Millennium Project Task Force on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (Grown et al. 2005) recommends that countries and international aid agencies use a measure of the gender asset gap, such as the incidence of asset ownership by men or women, as an indicator of progress toward MDG3.<sup>1</sup> At a minimum, having information on the magnitude of the gender asset gap (whether measured as the incidence of asset ownership by men or women or the gap in their net worth) will help policymakers assess the extent to which MDG3 is being met, as well as provide a more precise indication of the 3