Book Review: Social Work for Women Poverty-Alleviation by Cuie Zhang and Yunsu Du

In Social Work for Women Poverty-Alleviation, Cuie Zhang and Yunsu Du discuss the role of social work in alleviating women's poverty in China. This book provides an in-depth focus on gender perspectives in poverty reduction efforts, identifying the importance of rural revitalization in economic development and how social workers play a role in improving women's poverty conditions. The experience gained by social workers to participate in social actions has important value in poverty alleviation. This series is in line with the major strategies and policies for China's poverty alleviation that social work expertise should be applied to national strategies. They also discuss the importance of rural revitalization in poverty reduction.

The Book chapters present a comprehensive discussion with different themes of social work engagement for women's alleviation. In Chapter 1, The authors explain “Introduction” and review the background of the development of feminism of poverty globally, which began to gain attention in the 1960s, the concept of the feminization of poverty began to highlight how women's poverty became increasingly prominent in academic and policy studies. In 2019, the issue is increasingly relevant, especially among rural women marginalized by the dynamics of agricultural labor. Zhang highlights the close relationship between social work and poverty reduction, both in the origins of the profession, its history, and the values it holds based on research study, methods, and literature review. Chapter 2 discusses women's poverty reduction from the perspective of women's life journeys, which are divided into five periods: early childhood, adolescence, young womanhood, middle-aged womanhood, and elderly womanhood. The authors conduct a comparative analysis of the life journeys of women, several life stories have different types, such as chronic poverty, early poverty, and late-stage poverty. This is a new feature of the gender differentiation of the rural poor. In terms of differences in the life course, early poverty has a strong homogeneity of causes that are caused by the poverty of the place of birth and the artificial poverty of women because families favor sons over daughters, this poverty is manifested in terms of poor health due to inadequate nutritional care and education.

The third chapter examines “Women's Poverty Alleviation in the Perspective of Social Space”. The author discusses Women's poverty in the domestic space, this poverty is reflected in two aspects (women still bear the burden of completing household chores & women face work and family conflicts). When women move from the domestic space to the workspace, most of them are caught in the spatial conflict between the responsibilities of household chores, the care of children and the elderly, and the workspace requirements to complete the work.

In Chapter 4, Zhang and Yunsu discuss the comparison and reflection of four models on typical social work in women's poverty alleviation (ecosystem model, community development model, feminist model, and empowerment model). They examine these models have different perspectives on women's poverty and implement an important role in varied social work practice interventions. The ecosystem model of women's poverty alleviation emphasizes that social worker interventions should place poor women in the context of their lives, focusing on individual life experiences, developmental time, living space, ecological resource distribution, and focusing on communication and interaction between individuals and the environment. These interventions aim to help poor women utilize their strengths and resources. The community development model of women's poverty alleviation emphasizes that lack of resources, inadequate development, and poor interactions at the community level are the main causes of women's poverty thus comprehensive planning and resource allocation at the national and community levels are essential. The community development model focused on motivating local residents to actively engage in community activities, address social issues, and foster community growth through self-help or collective support within a broader community (Zhengpin, 2018). Therefore, the role of social workers as social agents and coordinators is important and prominent to guide poor women to fully explore and utilize internal and external resources in the community. In the feminist model, the authors emphasize the analysis of women's poverty in the “socio-political framework” and “gender issues,” focusing on the unjust institutional arrangements, educational inequality, gender discrimination, and gender oppression that cause women's poverty and seeks to address the root causes of poverty. This model requires social workers to play a role in advocacy and raising awareness of the audience about gender equality for women's poverty alleviation due to discrimination in the practice of social work. In the empowerment model for alleviation of women's poverty, Zhang and Yunsu Du highlight involving and reshaping the social gender culture includes various multilevel practical activities such as individual empowerment and community empowerment (e.g. the process of poor women empowerment consists of capacity-building activities on education and entrepreneurship) by the role of the social worker as agents of change. Furthermore, they highlight the necessity of social workers to localize these models by paying attention to cultural conflicts and integration of values, institutional differences, community integration, and integration of differences in objects and methods.

In Chapter 5, Zhang and Yunsu explore the practicals of Women's Poverty Alleviation by presenting cases of social work programs and gender reflection presented to all development social work that focuses on promoting the social improvement of policies and systems. They highlight poverty is not just an economic problem, so social workers in poverty alleviation must choose an effective entry point and try to encourage real change with socio-economic strategies. The author also examines the division of women into three categories: girls, adult women, and elderly women, and then selects one case for each category. For example, the social work intervention cases of girls are mainly based on the ecosystem model. They take individual cases on their families and small groups, and changing self-awareness as the entry point to achieve effective solutions and realizing good interaction among their families, classes, and peer groups. Another example is that adult women's social work intervention cases are mainly based on the community development model facing the contradiction of the low self-awareness and poor participation channels of women's communities in poor rural areas. Chapter 6 discusses “The New Era Calls for New Actions in Women's Poverty Alleviation Social Work”. The authors highlight the need for women's poverty alleviation is the main basis for social work interventions, and this is closely related to the characteristics of women's poverty. They also identify from a social gender perspective, it is important to first distinguish between women's social work and feminist social work. Women's social work is more oriented towards the general characteristics of poverty and uses more material assistance, while feminist social work emphasizes gender differences and thus highlights women's empowerment. This distinction helps to recognize the constitutes gender sensitivity in women's poverty alleviation policies that involve social workers in the social system. Furthermore, Zhang and Yunsu examine increased gender sensitivity helps social workers develop greater insight into identifying the gendered impact of poverty reduction policies based on the point of view of research and practices.

The book's strengths include in-depth case studies and a cross-disciplinary approach (including sociology, economics, gender studies, communication, and psychology) explained in the practice of social work framework that integrates the latest theories, methods, and research. The structured presentation of content and insights from professional practitioners make this book an essential reference and suitable for university students and lecturers in relevant field studies, social workers, practitioners in economic or gender studies, policymakers, and government involved in women's poverty alleviation. However, the book also has limitations, such as its in-depth coverage of China which creates limitations in generalizations of the case studies presented, given the complexity of geographical, cultural, and social diversity of the country. Overall, this book is highly recommended due to its contribution to the understanding of the relationship between gender and poverty, and how social work can be a professional force and implement a role in creating inclusive change for women, especially in poverty alleviation.