_1.b. Regional distribution of the poor by sex_

||Female|Male|Total|
|---|---|---|---|
|East Asia and Pacific|10.0|10.6|10.3|
|Europe and Central Asia|0.5|0.5|0.5|
|Latin America and Caribbean|4.6|4.3|4.5|
|South Asia|38.7|38.2|38.4|
|Sub‐Saharan Africa|46.1|46.3|46.2|
|Total|100|100|100|

Note: Total sample 89 countries Source: WB Staff’s calculations based on GMD.

The small differences we observe in the general numbers (disaggregated by sex alone) reflect the facts that: (i) poverty is measured at the household level and by assumption all household members are classified as either in or out of poverty, and (ii) the ratio of males to females is roughly 50/50 in both poor and non‐poor households, (iii) 50 percent of the poor are children, with no observed gender differences in the poverty headcount rate<sup>21</sup> . Measuring poverty at the household level assumes no intra‐household inequalities in access to income, consumption and other entitlements. Hence, gender differences in poverty rates are muted when looked through the lens of household‐level poverty.

# Where are the gender differences? Demographic characteristics

Differences in poverty rates between women and men become more salient as we start looking at different population subgroups by available demographic and other characteristics. For example, take residence. Globally, we can observe that the majority of the poor live in rural areas, and 18.2 percent of rural residents live on less than $1.90 a day. The corresponding rate for urban residents is 5.5 percent. This geographic difference in poverty rates, combined with the concentration of the poor in rural areas, means that about 80 percent of the poor live in rural areas, compared with 55 percent of the total population. Female poverty rates are slightly higher than male poverty rates in both urban (5.7 for women and 5.4 for men) and rural areas (18.7 for women and 17.9 percent for men). Women represent a larger share of the poor in urban areas, and men represent a larger share of the poor in rural areas (Figure 2b). However, these differences are not statistically significant at the global level. In all regions, poverty rates are higher for women than for men. Gender differences, however, are again only significant in South Asia where female poverty rates are about 1 percentage point higher in both urban and rural areas.

We also know that the poor tend to be young, and children are particularly at risk for poverty in the sample of 89 countries. Over one in five girls and boys ages 0‐14 live in a poor household and they represent 44 percent of the poor population. As already documented by Newhouse et al (2017) using the same dataset, 19.5 percent of all children younger than 18 are estimated to live on less than $1.90 per day, a bit over double the estimate for adults (9.2 percent). Girls and boys are consistently poorer than adults and seniors, and poverty is higher for children younger than 5 years of age, regardless of sex<sup>22</sup> . Among females, girls under 15 are the poorest. Their poverty rate is 8.5 percentage points higher than that of young women age 15‐24, and over 14 percentage points higher than that of senior women (only 6.7 percent

> 21 See Newhouse et al (2016) and Castañeda et al (2018)

> 22 In this paper/section, children are individuals aged 0‐14, young adults are 15‐24, adults are defined as individuals ages 18‐59, seniors are 60 and above. Prime‐working age individuals are 25‐54 and mature individuals are between 55 and 60 years of age.

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