Using the 2008 cross-sectional wave of the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions
(EU-SILC) survey and multilevel modeling techniques, this article explores the macro-level
determinants of the gender-poverty gap in the ten post-socialist EU member states.
In dialogue with the literature on the impact of economic development on gender inequality
in Asia and Latin America, we find that fast-paced, foreign capital-led economic growth
is associated with a larger gender-poverty gap in Central and Eastern Europe, while
generous welfare policies, specifically higher levels of spending on pensions and
family policies, are correlated with women's lower relative destitution. These findings
evaluate the impact of neoliberal style "economic development" on gender inequality
in a geopolitically specific context and suggest that structural adjustment and global
market integration may exacerbate women's vulnerability even when they are well equipped
with human capital and other resources to compete with men in the labor market.
