Poverty Naturalized: Implications for Gender

The article illustrates how philosophical assumptions affect the theory, practice, and results of poverty analysis, to the potential detriment of women and girls. It links the income/consumption approach to poverty with naturalist normative theory, which developed historically from the moral theory of David Hume. It then traces the historical development of naturalist normative theory from Hume to modern utility theory and examines its links with the British empiricist tradition. Finally, it reviews some of the practical consequences for gender and argues that the philosophical baggage of the income/consumption poverty approach may ignore important issues for women and girls, thereby creating significant gender "gaps" in the analysis of deprivation.