although at the global level households headed by men and those headed women are almost equally likely to be multidimensionally poor percent of manheaded households and percent of womanheaded households are multidimensionally poor there is considerable variation across countries and regions because the mpi is calculated at the household level rather than at the individual level complementary research may be needed to clarify the relationship between gender and poverty an average of percent of the population in countries in conflict for which the mpi is calculated lives in multidimensional poverty and another percent live in nearpoverty an average of percent of people in these countries live in severe multidimensional poverty