Gender Equality

How trade liberalization affects women’s position in the labour market and what role public policy should play to make the process work better for women are among some of the most debated issues in academic communities and in policy-making arenas. This work sheds light on these contentious issues by analysing the trends in labour market outcomes of women and men in China in the decade after its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The publication reviews the changes associated with China’s economic reforms and opening to international trade and investment since the process started in the late 1970s. Since the early 2000s, a wide range of policy measures have been introduced to strengthen labour market regulations, reduce inequality and increase social security. However, most of these policy initiatives were ‘gender neutral’, paying inadequate attention to the institutional constraints that disadvantaged women in the labour market.

This work provides an in-depth analysis of trends in labour outcomes of women in India based on employment-unemployment surveys. The publication brings out the gender differentials that exist in the employment status of women and men despite the existence of legal and policy framework for the empowerment of women in the country. The labour force participation rates (LFPRs) of women are not only less than half those of men but also declined in 2011–2012. Age, marital status, presence of children, socio-religious status, area of residence, level of education and relative affluence of households are some of the determinants of labour force participation of women and men in India.

Nicaragua has the second-highest emigration rate in Central America, behind El Salvador, and 40 per cent of Nicaraguan households receive remittances. In contrast to migrants from other Central American countries, however, Nicaraguan migrants are more likely to move within the region to Costa Rica than to the United States. This paper is concerned specifically with the implications of migration within Central America for family life. Focusing on the case of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, the paper argues that the provision of care in Nicaraguan transnational families occurs in the context of multiple insecurities, both historical and contemporary. In this sense, migration represents both a solution to the insecure climate of care provision and a source of further insecurity. The paper frames this analysis within scholarship on the privatization of care work, caregiving in transnational families, and historical patterns of diverse family configurations. It then draws on more than 24 months of ethnographic research between 2009 and 2016, including interviews and participant observation with migrants living in Costa Rica and their families in Nicaragua, to show how Nicaraguan families develop strategies based on a history of informal and flexible caregiving. In particular, marriage informality and grandmother caregiving are highlighted. While these informal strategies allow families to navigate the challenges migration and family separation entail, they also contribute to continued vulnerability and reinforce the gendered burdens of caregiving within transnational families.

The division of care and responsibility for children, including financial care, is usually determined by the family law of the State. This study identifies some of the most prevalent custody and child maintenance regimes in cases of divorce, dissolution of a civil union, and separation of parents. It examines the various regimes with particular emphasis on their impact on gender equality and women’s rights. Until the 19th century, a male prerogative over guardianship and legal custody of children was the norm in Roman law and in secular systems. The male prerogative has been rescinded in secular law systems, in accordance with the international human rights law requirement of the elimination of discrimination against women in the family. However, it has been retained in patriarchal religious and customary systems, which are endorsed by those States that maintain theocratic, religious-based or plural legal systems. Three overarching issues relating to custody may negatively impact women’s rights: domestic violence, the ongoing danger of which is often neglected in custody or visitation awards; the weaker bargaining position of women in the family as a result of patriarchal legal, cultural or economic contexts, which will disadvantage them in cases where the custody is subject to negotiation; and interpretation of the best interest of the child in a gender-biased way.

Marriage as both a legal and social institution has long been the subject of critique for its role in the oppression of women. However, the institution has undergone significant change in western jurisdictions, particularly in the last few decades, which have seen (among others) divorce reform, the rise of prenuptial agreements, and the legal recognition of same-sex relationships. These—coupled with social changes in attitudes towards gendered roles within marriage—have arguably resulted in an evolution of the institution. This paper explores the extent to which the legal institution of marriage in western jurisdictions has changed to reflect greater gender equality. It draws on a number of key illustrative examples: the gendered division of labour, division of assets on divorce, the introduction of same-sex marriage, and some examples from the expanding “menu” of relationship recognition. While significant advances have been made, particularly in terms of formal legal equality, this paper argues that there are still important respects in which gender equality is lacking in contemporary marriage in the West. The aim of this paper is to give a broad overview of marriage and relationship recognition, and the examples are necessarily jurisdictionally limited and not intended to be reflective of the legal position across all western jurisdictions.

Few programmes for economically empowering rural women in India have focused seriously on farming—the one occupation in which the women have most experience. Hence, two state-level initiatives in the early 2000s stand out, both because they focused on improving women’s livelihoods within agriculture itself, and because of the innovative institutional form by which they sought to do so, namely group farming. The initiatives encouraged rural women to lease in land collectively, pool their labour and capital, and cultivate jointly on a voluntary basis. Hence they recognized women as farmers outside the domain of family farms under which most cultivation is done globally, and in which women are typically unpaid family workers with little autonomy. This paper, based on the author’s detailed primary surveys in the two states, examines whether group farming can enable women farmers to overcome resource constraints and gain economically. Can it also empower them socially and politically? Since the approach to group farming differs notably in the two states, the paper examines which approach is more effective, and why. To date there has been no systematic study of group farming, based on carefully collected quantitative and qualitative data, in either state. The lessons learned from these experiences can help not only in strengthening group farming further, but also in assessing how these models could be replicated in other regions.

This study addresses the percolation and domestication of the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – Transforming our World” in Germany with a view to understanding its impact on domestic gender equality policies. Concentrating on federal-level policymaking, the main finding of the study is that the 2030 Agenda and SDG 5 have, as of yet, not had a discernible impact on domestic gender equality struggles. This is surprising, since the 2030 Agenda offers a holistic conception of sustainability, and thus has the “value added” advantage of merging and transcending the rather disjointed gender, social justice, and ecological sustainability policy strands. Based on 28 interviews with government officials, CSO representatives, and researchers, the study observes multiple disconnects. There is a lack of cohesion and consistency across ministries and civil society actors, resulting in a horizontal disconnect. There is a vertical disconnect between the 2030 Agenda as a multilateral agreement and its domestication. Perhaps because the 2030 Agenda is a soft-law tool, it has limited clout for transformative change; it is moreover seen to be weaker on gender equality commitments than other pertinent international agreements. An obvious conclusion of the study is to strengthen institutional linkages. The vision of gender equality needs to resonate with all actors supporting sustainable development. This could support women’s struggles in addressing Germany’s structural gender disadvantages.

This paper examines the interplay between the obligations related to the ‘family’ that States have assumed through various human rights treaties adopted over the decades, and the recent commitments undertaken under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. International human rights instruments recognize the ‘family’ as the fundamental unit of society and include a variety of rights and obligations pertaining to the family. These obligations must be respected in all laws, policies and interventions pertaining to the family. Under the 2030 Agenda, States committed to achieving sustainable development in its three dimensions in a balanced and integrated manner. Through the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and its 169 targets, the 2030 Agenda seeks to realize the human rights of all and to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. Given this context, this paper explores critical questions such as: If families have changed over time, what is a ‘family’ today? How do critical human rights principles such as equality and non-discrimination, the best interests of the child and the right to live a life free of violence shape the understanding of family? How should these human rights obligations guide the adoption of public policies that impact the family? How should policies and programmes ensure respect of the rights of all families, tailored to the diversity of families within a country?

This discussion paper views the whys and hows of feminist engagement with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a broader context: the key UN-related processes from the time women began getting involved with them in the 1970s. This contextual analysis for the period from the 1970s up to 2010 illuminates a central argument of the paper: namely, that feminist movement building is not a simple volitional act but is enmeshed in the fluxes and changes of its external environment and institutions. This historical background sets the stage for a more in-depth discussion of the recent period of the SDGs. Given the long history and persistence of gender inequality and violations of girls’ and women’s human rights, such a perspective is essential for a more balanced understanding of where we need to go and how to advance more sustainable transformations. The feminist movement is no stranger to adverse economic, social, and political environments. This paper argues that the ability of feminist organizations to hold their own in this fierce world, to defend human rights, and to advance economic, ecological, and gender justice requires not only clarity of vision and a track record of analysis and advocacy, but also stronger communications skills, greater organizational resilience and effectiveness, and the ability to build and nurture effective alliances in which younger people play strong roles.

Using micro data from two recent labour force surveys collected in Cameroon and Mali, this paper explores gender differentials in labour market outcomes covering key areas such as occupational segregation, informality, part-time work and gender wage gaps. While women’s participation to the labour market is relatively high in Africa compared to other regions of the world, the examples of Cameroon and Mali suggest it varies significantly within the continent. The data also show that the differential between the two countries in terms of women’s participation is driven by the differential in education levels. The analysis also reveals that noticeable gender differences can be observed in the employment patterns: while men are more likely to be salaried workers, women are more often unpaid family workers. However, in both countries, informal employment is the norm for both sexes. Gender gaps in monthly earnings are found to be much bigger for self-employed than for wage workers, a result that is consistent with other studies. Although education of both women and men is likely to play an important role, social norms in general deserve to be studied more thoroughly in order to understand remaining differences and their evolution in a context of rising education levels.

This paper examines the characteristics of past and contemporary feminisms and dissects the issues with periodizing feminism in terms of “waves”. Part two focuses on understanding the most recent wave of feminist activism by considering its antecedents and main characteristics. It presents three case studies of movements in the Global South; the cases of Brazil, India, and Malawi illustrate some of the ideas, campaigns, and organizational forms of “new feminists”.

This publication examines policies for the support of families with children, in particular child-related financial transfers and early childhood education and care (ECEC) services. The analysis is mainly focused on countries with institutionalized welfare states—primarily Western European and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries—because that is where child-related benefits and services have the longest history. The work highlights a number of core insights relevant to policy planning and decision-making for child-related transfers and ECEC services.

Cash transfers are often considered a gender-sensitive development tool because women have traditionally been the target for large social cash transfer programs. However, targeting women does not automatically yield favourable outcomes for women and girls. While there is emerging evidence from the development sector to suggest that cash transfers can positively impact women and girls across an array of protection and empowerment dimensions, the results are often mixed and poorly understood. The evidence base on gender and cash in humanitarian settings, where the use of cash is on the rise, is even more limited. Without proper gender considerations, there is a concern that cash transfers may fail to reach those left furthest behind, potentially limiting rather than generating opportunity for greater gender-transformative change. This paper begins by presenting an overview of the latest research on cash transfers, gender protection, and empowerment outcomes. It continues by discussing some of the programme design features to consider when seeking to improve gender outcomes. Finally, the paper concludes with a set of research questions that can help shape future research and practice in this area.

This paper investigates how women’s right to live free from violence operates in the context of insecure immigration status. It is based on qualitative research addressing intimate partner violence against women with insecure immigration status in England and Sweden, analysed within a human rights theoretical framework. Empirical data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 31 survivors from 14 different non–European Union countries and 57 professional stakeholders from local, national, and international organizations. The paper identifies a tension between human rights and immigration control that is present in theory, policy frameworks, and migrant women’s lived experiences. It contends that this tension has led to a proliferation of rights’ statuses for migrant women who are exposed to intimate partner violence. A solution is offered in the form of an expansionist model of human rights whereby presence in a territory is the basis for recognition as a rights-bearing subject.

This paper traces the restructuring of rural families’ agricultural production, the intra-household division of labour, and land usage in the interim between the global oil price rise of 1979 and its precipitous fall by 2015. These decades witnessed smallholder export crop production becoming increasingly uncompetitive in the world market due to the high costs of transporting bulky crops over the vast expanses of rural Africa. With the decline of cash cropping, men, women, and youth were drawn away from farming towards off-farm cash-earning in a wide variety of non-agricultural activities. Now, male heads of household no longer monopolize cash earnings in rural households to the same extent as in the past. Women’s and youth’s earnings afford them more household decision-making autonomy. Demographically, the HIV/AIDS crisis has imposed strain on rural households, and impacted land usage and inheritance, affecting women detrimentally in some countries, whereas state reform of inheritance laws has improved women’s situation in other countries. Generally, officially published national-level rural labour statistics harbour gender bias and under-reporting of female labour expenditure. Domestic work continues to be the preserve of women. Marriage patterns are changing, with some women experiencing a reluctance to marry men due to men’s lost income-earning capacity and women’s increased wariness of contracting AIDS. In this context, matrifocal families have gained salience.

This discussion paper examines how the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has been integrated into the national debate on gender equality in Ecuador. It identifies which policies from the Agenda have been taken into account and which have been rejected. It also examines how the actors involved in clarifying the scope of these policies—women’s movements, sexual diversity organizations, public officials, and United Nations agencies working on gender equality—have coordinated their activities with the Agenda. In so doing, it attempts to answer the following questions: How does the 2030 Agenda interact with the gender equality agenda in Ecuador? Where do they intersect and what are their points of contention? How has the global agenda influenced national policies and actions on gender equality and women’s rights? The paper also assesses whether newer feminist and sexual diversity organizations in Ecuador are aware of and incorporate the 2030 Agenda and, conversely, whether the Agenda addresses the debates and demands made by such organizations in recent years. Lastly, it provides some recommendations on how to better translate the goals and targets on gender equality from the 2030 Agenda into Ecuador’s national gender policies.