WUNRN
United Nations University 2008 -
Policy Brief
Gender Excerpt:
Intra-Household Food Security: The
Role of Women
The Status of Women Matters for Food
Security
The status of women in a society has
telling effects on both the intra-household distribution of food, as well as
its total availability....It has been found in Pakistan research, for example,
that the relative standing of a mother compared to her husband - measured by
differential educational attainment - as well as her access to cash income, is
positively associated with the improved nutritional status of her children.
Further, the mother's relative standing is also associated with less spending
on adult goods (alcohol, tobacco). Taken together, these results suggest that
policy initiatives that seek to improve child nutritional status should focus
in part on improving the relative bargaining power of women in households,
through access to education.
A substantial and sustainable
reduction in hunger will also greatly improve the chances of meeting the
Millennium Development Goals related to poverty reduction, education, child
mortality, maternal health, and disease. Hunger though, is not a
straightforward problem of producing enough to feed the world's population; it
has many cross-cutting dimensions.
CAN WE
ERADICATE HUNGER?
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