The paper presents some expenditure-based and basic needs poverty indicators for Ghana, disaggregated by gender. The similarity of living standards as measured across a number of indicators and gender groupings may seem surprising, but the paper suggests that the real gender-differentiation most visibly manifests itself in the inability of women to raise living standards due to poorer educational enrolment and attainment and heavier time burdens.

In addition to the distributional concerns, this gender-differentiation has important efficiency implications. Ghana is currently undergoing a process of economic adjustment, and if women are located in sectors that will have to contract as a consequence, successful adjustment will require female resource mobility and access to new resources. If there is gender-differentiation in resource mobility and access, it will act as a brake on adjustment in addition to tightening the ratchet through role-formation.