<mark>often in the informal sector, and that their greater mobility and networks are used to access labor and</mark> other markets and institutions to provide resources that keep households out of poverty.

<mark>Humanitarian assistance received in 2013/14 made massive differences to the poverty experienced by Syrian refugee households, lifting around three‐quarters of poor households out of poverty. But, even after assistance, unaccompanied children and sibling households remain vulnerable, especially so if the principal applicant is a woman or a girl. Some of the association between household poverty and care of vulnerable people is reduced after assistance is received. Humanitarian assistance appears to have been well targeted toward households with disabled people but, either more assistance or better targeting is needed to meet the needs of households with elderly people, large households, and female principal applicant households with children under five. The emergence of single men as a category who appear</mark> vulnerable to poverty in the context of humanitarian assistance needs further examination.

<mark>Humanitarian assistance is not intended to close gender poverty gaps, nevertheless given the concerns about vulnerable populations it is a relevant consideration. After humanitarian assistance is received a gender poverty gap that works against female PA households appears for households overall. Decomposition analysis shows that the gap is statistically explained by the presence of children under 5, differences in education and household size. For female principal applicant households having more children under five and less year’s education increases the gender‐poverty gap but as their household size increases the gender poverty gap closes. Large households are thus associated with poverty for both male</mark> and female PA households.

<mark>Differences between the demographic characteristics of the households with male and female PAs are correlated with the likelihood of household poverty. Female principal applicant households are more likely to be poor when they have more elderly dependents and children under 5, are less educated and receive less wage income or remittances compared to male PAs. But this is not the only explanation, gender‐ specific barriers or gender discrimination which prevent women accessing markets and services are also</mark> a factor.

<mark>We find that when female principal applicant households with the same characteristics as male principle applicant households are given the same opportunities (in this case the assistance from WFP and UNHCR), they do as well as male principal applicant households. Comparing female and male PA households that have similar characteristics, female principal applicant households are still more likely to be poor than male principal applicant households in the absence of receiving humanitarian assistance. However, once assistance is received, female principal applicant households are no more likely to be poor than equivalent</mark> male principal applicant households.

<mark>Other findings are consistent with research on Syrian refugees in Jordan that identifies gender‐specific barriers to labor market participation and social norms that limit women’s mobility outside the home and their agency in markets as factors that increase refugee households’ vulnerability (World Bank, 2016; ODI UNICEF and UNHCR, 2017). Our analysis shows that when female principal applicant households with the same characteristics as male principle applicant households have adult males in the household the association between female PA and a higher likelihood of poverty disappears. We interpret this effect as being due to adult males acting as an asset to female PA households as they do not face the same barriers</mark> to accessing markets as women.

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