If policymakers hope to make faster progress in improving economic performance, reducing p

If policymakers hope to make faster progress in

improving economic performance, reducing poverty, and slowing 【M1】_________

population growth, they will have to go much farther in 【M2】_________

their efforts to involve women in economic development.

Women really contribute more in economic terms than is 【M3】_________

usually recognized. They account for over half the food

produced in developing world, even more in Africa; they 【M4】_________

constitute one fourth of the developing world's industrial labor

force; they carry the main responsibility for childcare and

household chores; they head one fourth and more of the families 【M5】_________

in many developing nations; and they usually fetch most of

the household's water and fuelwood.

Yet their contribution goes drastically underestimated,

partly because women's job often "does not count," and. partly 【M6】_________

because much of it is home-based. Unpriced, it is hard to value,

and being often immediately consumed, it quickly ceases to be

visible. Studies in Nepal and the Philippines suggest that when

the production of rural women is valued properly, in average 【M7】_________

they actually contribute about one half the family's income. 【M8】_________

Women could contribute far more to their own welfare and

to the economy if their opportunities to do were not so confined. 【M9】_________

The poor, male or female, suffer from limited access to

education and health care, information and technology, credit

and resources, even markets. But women also face additional

gender-related difficulties rooted in tradition—sometimes

codified into law and policy—and biology (the demands of

multiple pregnancies and the need to care for children). While

men normally go into the "outside" world, women often

lack in not only the chance to move "outside," but the resources 【M10】_________

to function at full effectiveness "inside"—at home.

【M1】