While the processes of economic development and poverty alleviation can reduce some of the inequalities between men and women that arise when families and communities face extreme resource constraints, growth alone is not enough to guarantee women equal access to health, education, earning opportunities, rights and political participation (Duflo 2012). For this reason, a strong case can be made for policies and programs that seek to address gender-specific constraints to economic empowerment. Many of these constraints are external in nature, for example educational opportunities, access to financial services, and asset ownership. In addition, gender differences in internal constraints—psychological and behavioral preferences rooted in social evolution and cultural norms—may play an important role in shaping the choices that women make with respect to labor market participation, entrepreneurship, technology adoption, and expenditure and consumption patterns. This paper explores the evidence on gender differences in behavior and how program design can best utilize our growing knowledge about the nature of these differences to inform policy going forward.One of the most exciting recent intellectual trends in the field of development economics is the incorporation of important insights from behavioral science into the understanding of economic decision-making. Indeed, the World Bank’s 2015 World Development Report, entitled “Mind, Society, and Behavior,” was devoted to exploring this paradigm, and how it can be applied in diverse policy areas such as early childhood development, household finance, and health. In the coming years, as the international development community moves away from classical assumptions about rationality and learns more about the complexities of cognition and identity, the influence of culture, and the biases and seemingly less than rational preferences characterizing human choices, we are sure to see increasing numbers of policies and programs being guided by behavioral design principles.