Informal safety nets are increasingly fragile: many households simply cannot afford to extend support to others for long periods, while community-based support is frequently minimal and precarious.19 Social transfers can mitigate these risks and lessen the effect of market-induced inequalities. A recent review of pre- and posttransfer poverty rates in 27 high-income and 10 middle-income countries shows that in developed countries, social transfers reduce by around 60 per cent the proportion of women and men living in poor households and in Latin America, they decrease female and male poverty by 30 per cent.30 In South Africa transfers bring poverty rates down by 37 per cent. In Guatemala, for example, women's poverty rates are 4.2 percentage points higher than men's before transfers but almost 1 percentage point lower after transfers. But women's personal income continues to be substantially lower than men's everywhere, indicating that existing social transfers are insufficient to fully redress the disadvantage arising from gender inequality in labour markets.