New qualitative fieldwork in eightcountries of Europe and Central Asia (ECA) indicates thatthe dramatic declines in poverty in much of the region overthe last decade do not appear to be registering veryfavorably with men and women on the ground. This paperprovides a gender analysis of findings from equal numbers ofsex-specific focus groups with employed and joblessindividuals. The methodology featured a standardized packageof semi-structured data collection tools, which enabledsystematic comparative analysis of the datasets from 37urban and rural communities across eight countries in theregion. While lack of jobs and the rising cost of living arecentral concerns for both women and men across the sample,the qualitative data highlights important gender differencesin how men and women are responding to these challenges thatquantitative survey approaches appear to miss. Throughoutthe sample, women are widely reported to be doing everythingthey can to pull their households out of poverty or tomaintain their families in the middle class, while men voicedeep frustration with their weak economic opportunities andthe need for additional household members to contributeeconomically. Women’s increased economic participation inthe face of men’s hardships with breadwinning - and thestress on gender roles and relations that this entails - arecrucial for making sense of frustrations on the grounddespite the region’s significant social and economic development.
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