Gender Differences in Multidimensional Poverty in Brazil: A Fuzzy Approach

Abstract

This study aims to improve the measurement of multidimensional poverty for the purpose of analyzing gender differences while considering the limitations of household surveys. To effectively analyze gender disparities, it addresses three issues that are often overlooked in the literature: disregard for within-household inequalities in household-level indicators; disregard for ineligible populations in indicators that represent only a specific group; and disregard for intermediate deprivation situations in cutoff-based poverty estimations. Using data from the Brazilian Consumer Expenditure Survey 2017–2018, we create two indexes with indicators that are key aspects in gender and feminist analyses. Applying a fuzzy approach and the Alkire–Foster method, we estimate multidimensional poverty and gender differences from three perspectives: intrahousehold, interhousehold, and intracouple. We also calculate inequality among the poor and intracouple gender gaps proposing fuzzy versions for these analyses. The main findings suggest that women are disadvantaged in terms of work and time quality, economic security, and access to resources—all of which are crucial components of agency or degree of empowerment.