Discusses how to alleviate poverty in Africa, identifying the constraints under which women operate and policies that will aid growth and empower women, recognizing the importance of bargaining parameters and the role of assets.

The analysis calls for caution in assuming that labour market expansion necessarily acts to empower women and emphasizes the role female access to assets can have in facilitating diversification and escaping poverty. It will appeal to all those studying development economics, with particular interest in areas such as diversification, poverty and female empowerment.

1. Introduction, 2. The surveys: countries, methodology and poverty clasifications, 3. Time use and labour supply in rural households, 4. Landlessness, poverty and labour supply in south-western Ethiopia, 5. Redefining gender roles and reworking gender relations: female agricultural labour in dry regions of Andhra Pradesh, 6. Gender relations and female labour supply in Eastern Uganda, 7. Female-headed households in Zimbabwe: a different type of poverty needing a different set of solutions? 8. Policies and poverty alleviation