Elizabeth Funk, CEO of The Dignity Fund, on Women and Poverty

Nearly half of the world’s population lives in poverty, and 836 million people live in extreme poverty. 70 percent of women globally live in poverty, and it doesn’t only occur in developing countries. In the United States, 35 percent of single mothers raise their children in poverty. Poverty affects women more harshly than it affects men.

Across the world, women earn 23 percent less than men. In developing countries, gender inequality costs women $9 trillion a year. In these countries, 75 percent of women work in the informal economy, which means they are less likely to have employment contracts, social protection or legal rights.

Women are more susceptible to poverty for multiple reasons. They spend more of their money on their children, health, education and nutrition. They also perform more unpaid work than men, have fewer assets and less control over household resources.

Women perform at least twice as much unpaid work, including housework and childcare, as men. In some places, women perform 10 times as much unpaid work. It’s estimated that the global value of this work equals $10 trillion. Other forms of unpaid work including accessing clean drinking water and cooking fuel. These tasks result in women being “time poor,” meaning they have less time to pursue an education or get another means of employment.

Globally, only 20 percent of landowners are women. In Niger, only 5 percent of women own land. This is in part due to banks deeming women less creditworthy than men. Women are 20 percent less likely to have a bank account and substantially less likely to use savings and lending instruments. In some countries, it’s illegal for women to even have a bank account.

Though women are often denied loans, they’re more trustworthy with them than men are. 15.35 percent of men have problems repaying their loans, while only 1.3 percent of women do. In Malaysia, 95 percent of women repay their loans compared to only 72 percent of men.

In the poorest countries, many women are forced into marriage at a young age. Girls from poor families are more than twice as likely to get married while still in childhood, as reducing the family size reduces the family’s economic burden.

While the state of women in poverty looks grim, gender lens investing is one solution to this. While it’s a new field, it will increase access to capital, increase products and services that benefit women, and increase women’s presence and value.

About Elizabeth Funk

Elizabeth Funk is the founder and CEO of Dignity Fund, an innovative social impact for-profit fund that provides capital for microfinance projects around the world to help impoverished entrepreneurs found their own businesses and bring themselves out of poverty. Elizabeth also serves as the General Partner for DevEquity, a company that provides funds for social enterprises throughout Latin America.

Elizabeth Funk graduated from Stanford University with honors in 1991. She then went on to earn her MBA from Harvard University in 1996 and was a Baker Scholar.

This article was originally published on ElizabethFunk.org.