Poverty rates of male and female principal applicant Syrian refugee households <mark>We begin with a comparison of poverty rates between male and female principal applicant households before and after UNHCR and World Food Programme (WFP) assistance.</mark><sup>22</sup> <mark>The poverty line is Jordanian dinars (JD) 50 per capita per month (US$5.25 purchasing power parity [PPP] per capita per day). It was set using the monetary threshold that UNHCR used to target its cash assistance program at the time. UNHCR assistance was JD 50 per month for households with one or two members, JD 100 for households with three to five people, and JD 120 for households that have more than five members. WFP assistance was</mark> JD 24 per person per month.

<mark>Table 4 shows that over half of all refugee households (53 percent) registered with UNHCR are poor before UNHCR and WFP assistance. There is no difference between the poverty rates of male and female principal applicant households overall. UNHCR and WFP assistance reduces overall poverty rates by large amounts;</mark> household poverty falls from 53 percent to 11 percent for households on average.

<mark>About 62 percent of households of married male and female principal applicants who are living with their spouses are poor. Poverty rates are lower for all the other marital categories, ranging from 21 percent for single principle applicants to 53 percent for principle applicants who are married but living without their spouse. There is no significant difference between poverty rates of male and female principal applicants who are married and living together. However, poverty rates are significantly higher for female principal</mark> applicant households compared with male principle applicants in all the other marital categories.

<mark>UNHCR and WFP assistance reduces poverty rates for all marital categories. However, a gender‐poverty gap opens up after UNHCR assistance; overall the poverty rates of female principal applicant households are 3 percentage points higher than those of male principal applicant households. After assistance, poverty rates of female principal applicant households who are married but living without their spouse, single or engaged or divorced or separated, are significantly higher than those of male principal applicant</mark> households in the same categories.

<mark>Turning to family types, over two‐thirds of couples with children (who account for 45 percent of households) are poor before assistance and there is no difference between the poverty rates of male and female principal applicant households. Again, on average poverty rates are lower for all other family types ranging from 14 for single‐person households to 60 percent for single‐caregiver households. Thirty‐six percent of all family types apart from married couples with children (called here nontraditional family types) are poor. Clearly nontraditional households are much less vulnerable to poverty than couples with children. However, within this group, there is a large gender gap in poverty rates. Apart from extended and other households, poverty rates are much higher for female principal applicant households than male principal applicant households for all other nontraditional family types. Female single caregivers have the highest rate of poverty (61 percent) followed by unaccompanied children and siblings (41 and 43 percent,</mark> respectively). The largest gender‐poverty rate gap is between male and female principal applicants who <mark>.</mark>

> 22 Verme et al. (2016) calculated these indexes using reported expenditure during the home visits.

17