This book is about the poverty of old, illiterate women in a rural community in Ghana. It narrates the women’s stories of poverty as they experience and understand it. The stories give us an opportunity to enter the cultural context that produced the conditions which engendered the women’s poverty. The emphasis on old women is significant in that the feminization of poverty, which scholars have used as an analytical tool to delineate women’s poverty, often focuses on women’s income and/or their position as heads of households. The result has been that unless women were formally employed in their prime to earn retirement income or live in countries where they may be supported by social welfare programs, old women who were neither income earners in their prime nor heads of their households in their current situations are left out of analyses of women’s poverty that use the feminization of poverty as their framework. This appears to be the case in Ghana, where there is a rich body of literature on poverty generally, and on women and poverty specifically, but a paucity of information on the poverty of old, illiterate women, particularly those who reside in rural areas. That oversight is unfortunate because not only is old women’s poverty widespread and perhaps even more devastating than the poverty of other groups of women, but also because the poverty of old women who reside in rural areas has not been analyzed with the urgency that it deserves. Recognizing the paucity of information on the poverty of old women in rural areas in Ghana and the inadequacy of the feminization of poverty as a major analytical framework that describes women’s poverty, the book adopts a multidimensional framework that goes beyond lack of income and emphasizes indicators of poverty categorized under the broad headings of health, education, and living standards. This approach, which follows the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) defined by development agencies and the UN, examines indicators like age, barrenness, death, and ideas about social life, among others. Analyzing old women’s poverty from a multidimensional perspective goes beyond a definition of women’s poverty that is couched narrowly in terms of lack of income or headship of households. Instead, analyzing old women’s poverty from a multidimensional or intersectional perspective allows for the inclusion of qualitative, unmeasurable aspects of social life that delimit women’s ability to freely access and enjoy available resources. The multidimensional perspective allows for a critique of the lack of income as a cornerstone of analyses of poverty. In the end, the book presents an analysis that de-emphasizes income and centers qualitative aspects of life. It also contributes to filling the gap in the literature of women’s poverty while also preserving the knowledge of the women before they carry them to their graves.

Introduction

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发表日期：

2026年

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Martha Donkor

摘要

This book is about the poverty of old, illiterate women in a rural community in Ghana. It narrates the women’s stories of poverty as they experience and understand it. The stories give us an opportunity to enter the cultural context that produced the conditions which engendered the women’s poverty. The emphasis on old women is significant in that the feminization of poverty, which scholars have used as an analytical tool to delineate women’s poverty, often focuses on women’s income and/or their position as heads of households. The result has been that unless women were formally employed in their prime to earn retirement income or live in countries where they may be supported by social welfare programs, old women who were neither income earners in their prime nor heads of their households in their current situations are left out of analyses of women’s poverty that use the feminization of poverty as their framework. This appears to be the case in Ghana, where there is a rich body of literature on poverty generally, and on women and poverty specifically, but a paucity of information on the poverty of old, illiterate women, particularly those who reside in rural areas. That oversight is unfortunate because not only is old women’s poverty widespread and perhaps even more devastating than the poverty of other groups of women, but also because the poverty of old women who reside in rural areas has not been analyzed with the urgency that it deserves. Recognizing the paucity of information on the poverty of old women in rural areas in Ghana and the inadequacy of the feminization of poverty as a major analytical framework that describes women’s poverty, the book adopts a multidimensional framework that goes beyond lack of income and emphasizes indicators of poverty categorized under the broad headings of health, education, and living standards. This approach, which follows the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) defined by development agencies and the UN, examines indicators like age, barrenness, death, and ideas about social life, among others. Analyzing old women’s poverty from a multidimensional perspective goes beyond a definition of women’s poverty that is couched narrowly in terms of lack of income or headship of households. Instead, analyzing old women’s poverty from a multidimensional or intersectional perspective allows for the inclusion of qualitative, unmeasurable aspects of social life that delimit women’s ability to freely access and enjoy available resources. The multidimensional perspective allows for a critique of the lack of income as a cornerstone of analyses of poverty. In the end, the book presents an analysis that de-emphasizes income and centers qualitative aspects of life. It also contributes to filling the gap in the literature of women’s poverty while also preserving the knowledge of the women before they carry them to their graves.