this gender division of labour increases women s economic dependency on men when men with higher earnings or a pension are not around any more because of divorce migration or death women as lone mothers and older women living alone have a higher risk of poverty the proportion of women who were employed and earned cash income in the last months is particularly low in some asian countries in both the southern and western subregions and the gender differences are very high for example only per cent of married women aged in india were employed and earned cash income in the last months compared to per cent of married men of the same age