Women and Gender Issues
World Survey of the Role of Women in Development
Progress of the World’s Women
UN Women Policy Briefs
The UN Women policy brief series synthesizes research findings analysis and policy recommendations on key policy areas around gender equality and womens rights in an accessible format. The series aims to bridge the research and policy divide by identifying issues that require urgent policy attention and propose a set of suitable measures to address them. The series is a joint effort of UN Womens Policy Division coordinated by the Research and Data Section. To ensure the quality and relevance of the content each brief undergoes a rigorous internal and external peer review process. These concise and relevant policy-oriented documents are useful resources for gender equality advocates civil society and other policy actors working to achieve gender equality and womens rights.
Notes de Politique d'ONU Femmes
La série de Notes de politique d’ONU Femmes offre sous un format accessible une synthèse de résultats de recherche d’analyses et de recommandations sur des domaines clés des politiques relatives à l’égalité des sexes et aux droits des femmes. Elle vise à combler le fossé qui existe entre la recherche et la politique en identifiant les questions qui appellent à une attention urgente et en proposant des mesures susceptibles de les résoudre. Cette série est le fruit d’une collaboration entre la Division de politique d’ONU Femmes et la Section des recherches et données qui en a assuré la coordination. Afin de garantir la qualité et la pertinence de son contenu chacune de ces Notes est passée par un processus d’examen interne et par une revue externe assurée des pairs. Concis et pertinents ces documents d’orientation politique représentent des ressources utiles pour les défenseuses et défenseurs de l’égalité des sexes pour des représentantes et représentants de la société civile et pour les autres intervenantes et intervenants œuvrant à la réalisation de l’égalité des sexes et aux droits des femmes.
Resúmenes de Políticas de ONU Mujeres
La serie de Resúmenes de políticas de ONU Mujeres sintetiza en un formato accesible las conclusiones de las investigaciones los análisis y las recomendaciones sobre esferas clave de política en el ámbito de la igualdad de género y los derechos de la mujer. El objetivo de esta serie es salvar la brecha que existe entre la investigación y la política mediante la identificación de los temas que requieren una atención urgente desde el área normativa y la formulación de propuestas de medidas adecuadas para abordar dichos temas. La serie constituye una iniciativa conjunta de la División de Políticas de ONU Mujeres y está coordinada por la Sección de Investigación y Recogida de Datos. Para garantizar la calidad y la pertinencia de su contenido cada resumen se somete a un riguroso proceso de revisión entre pares tanto interno como externo. Estos documentos concisos y pertinentes encaminados a la adopción de políticas son recursos de gran utilidad para las personas que trabajan en favor de la igualdad de género la sociedad civil y otros actores políticos dedicados a lograr la igualdad de género y realizar los derechos de las mujeres.
UN Women Discussion Papers
The UN Women discussion paper series is a new initiative led by the Research and Data section of UN Women to provide grounded fresh and robust perspectives on some of the contemporary challenges to achieving gender equality and women’s rights and offer insights into policy innovations that are making a difference in women’s lives. The series is a space for leading feminist researchers to share original substantive research from different national and regional contexts. Before being published each paper benefits from an anonymous external peer review process by experts so that the final product is a high quality and relevant piece of research that contributes to further scholarship in the field.
The case for convergence: Assessing regional income distribution in Asia and the Pacific
This paper considers income inequality in Asia and the Pacific examining whether there has been an increase or decrease in income inequality among countries in the region in recent decades. By analysing the position of countries’ GDP per capita relative to that of a reference economy (Australia) the study finds that between the years 1970 and 2014 most of the region’s less affluent countries were able to catch up in relative terms allowing them to slowly move up the income matrix towards higher tier groups. Subregional examination reveals that most of the income convergence in the Asia-Pacific region was due to exceptional economic growth in East and North-East Asia and to a lesser extent in South-East Asia. While the paper shows that relative income differences between countries in the region have fallen since the 1970s it points to the need for differentiating between relative and absolute measures of inequality. Insufficient convergence and substantial initial differences in GDP per capita have meant that despite a decline in relative inequality absolute differences in average income have grown during the same period.
What impedes structural transformation in Asia?
Structural transformation – the movement of workers from low productivity to high productivity activities – is an essential ingredient of inclusive growth. In the present paper evidence on why the pace of structural transformation has differed widely across countries in Asia is reviewed with a specific focus on China India and Thailand. It is argued that government failures relating to the functioning of labour land and product markets and market failures relating to coordination of investment credit market imperfections and human capital formation have been the primary causes of the slow pace of structural transformation in several Asian countries. In the paper it is suggested that emphasis be placed on reforming policies that impede the functioning of labour land and product markets and strengthening industrial and education policies to tackle specific market failures pertaining to investment coordination and human capital formation.
Price co-movements, commonalities and responsiveness to monetary policy: Empirical analysis under indian conditions
This study aims to empirically establish the co-movement of price indices of seemingly unrelated commodities suggesting that the Central Bank should not decouple fluctuation in the national price index into volatile and core components. An attempt is also made to understand whether monetary policy can influence the factors responsible for price fluctuations in the states of India. The study becomes especially relevant under Indian conditions where flexible inflation targeting has been adopted by the Reserve Bank of India (Central Bank of India) and achieving the targeted inflation is a primary concern of the Indian government. The results of the empirical analysis clearly reveal that unrelated price indices co-move in India and that monetary policy initiatives fail to influence the common factors of the states of India. The empirical results have crucial implications for the Reserve Bank of India and as such a conscious effort is needed to enable policy to influence the price indices of the states of India.
Envisioning tax policy for accelerated development in India
The objective of the present paper is to demonstrate that despite several years of reform the tax-GDP ratio in India is well below international standards and has been static over the last decade. Based on a crosscountry analysis of tax-GDP ratios in 115 countries over the period 2005-2015 an estimate is made of the extent of under-taxation in India. Considering that children in the age group of 0-14 years constitute about 40 per cent of the population of 1.3 billion in India in the paper it is argued that the tax-GDP ratio must be raised to enhance allocation to education health care and physical infrastructure to ensure demographic dividends by providing the increasing workforce with productive employment opportunities. The reforms needed to raise the revenue productivity of the tax system while taking into account the best practice approach to tax reform are identified in the paper.
Contract farming, agriculture productivity and poverty reduction: Evidence from tea estates in Viet Nam
Interest in contract farming is increasing because of its potential as an alternative channel for linking producers to international markets. However there is limited knowledge on contract farming of tea production in Viet Nam especially in more inaccessible provinces where tea production plays an important role in generating employment improving livelihood and reducing poverty. In the present paper the impact of contract farming on productivity is reviewed in Pho Tho province a major tea production area that has not been the focus of any other studies. Using survey data an analysis is conducted on the factors affecting tea productivity and the impact of contract farming on tea productivity in the province. The results indicate that the impact of factors on tea productivity is ambiguous. They also indicate that technical efficiency of tea production of contracted farmers is higher than that of other types of farmers by almost 5 per cent and that contract farming has a positive influence on tea productivity in the province. Because of different climatic conditions the results from this study are not generalizable across Viet Nam but they can be applied in the Northern midlands and mountainous areas.
Measuring creative economy in Indonesia: Issues and challenges in data collection
Although creative economy is emerging as an area to be evaluated establishing a benchmark against which it can be measured is still problematic due to a range of definitional problems both conceptual and practical. In recent years many agencies and governments have invested significant effort into collecting data on creative economy but in many countries including Indonesia measuring creative economy remains a challenge. Data collection on creative economy has been conducted twice in Indonesia initially through surveys undertaken in 2016 and then in a compilation of the 2016 Economic Census. The data collection used a common classification system to identify the five-digit Indonesia Standard Industrial Classification (KBLI) regarded as creative economy. Out of a total of 1573 five-digit KBLI codes there are 223 which are identified as creative economy activities. However this approach remains unstandardized in terms of concept definitions data collection procedures methods of analysis and common classification systems. This paper highlights the numerous limitations in current creative economy measurement in Indonesia identifying issues and challenges in data collection and creative economy measurement processes that are needed to support the Sustainable Development Goals.
Factors influencing maternal health care in Nepal: The role of socioeconomic interaction
This paper relies on an extensive data set on Nepalese families to examine factors influencing the extent to which maternal health care is provided.
Measuring autonomy: Evidence from Bangladesh
The search for rigorous transparent and domain-specific measures of empowerment that can be used for gender analysis is ongoing. This paper explores the added value of a new measure of domain-specific autonomy. This direct measure of motivational autonomy emanates from the “selfdetermination theory” (Ryan and Deci 2000). We examine in detail the Relative Autonomy Index (RAI) for individuals using data representative of Bangladeshi rural areas. Based on descriptive statistical analyses we conclude that the measure and its scale perform broadly well in terms of conceptual validity and reliability. Based on an exploratory analysis of the determinants of autonomy of men and women in Bangladesh we find that neither age education nor income are suitable proxies for autonomy. This implies that the RAI adds new information about individuals and as such could represent a promising avenue for further empirical exploration as a quantitative yet nuanced measure of domain-specific empowerment.
External sector liberalization, financial development and income in South Asia
The paper provides an analysis on the impact of external sector openness and financial sector development on per capita income in the South Asian economies of Bangladesh Bhutan India Nepal Pakistan and Sri Lanka. For the annual series from 1980 to 2015 the instrumental variable model using a generalized method of moments (GMM) approach is estimated. The results show that liberalizing the external sector raises per capita income conditional on the level of financial sector development. The large-economy influence analysis shows that India will benefit the most from external sector liberalization and other economies involved in this study still need to focus on financial sector development as opposed to on liberalizing capital flows. It further indicates that premature external liberalization in small and poor economies tends to be beneficial to the large neighbouring economy which in this case is India leading to resource exploitation. Accordingly unless financial markets and institutions are strong enough to effectively deal with domestic resource mobilization opening up the external sector alone may impede the economic development process.
The impact of foreign direct investment on income inequality: a panel Autogressive Distributed Lag approach for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation developing economies
In the present paper the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on income inequality in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies is investigated by using annual data for the period 1990–2015. The variables used are the Gini coefficient FDI inflows gross domestic product (GDP) per capita trade openness and human capital. Also panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and panel heterogeneous non-causality tests are used in this study. The panel ARDL results suggest that in the long run FDI inflows decrease income inequality. This supports the argument that encouraging FDI inflows does not harm the distribution of income in APEC economies. The results also confirm that GDP per capita and trade openness help reduce income inequality while human capital widens income inequality. The results from this study suggest that APEC authorities could implement sound policies to attract more FDI as evidence indicates that those inflows would narrow income inequality in APEC economies.
Music: Nigeria’s new export
It is a cold evening in Antwerp Belgium’s second-largest city famous for diamonds beer art and high-end fashion. Inside a small restaurant a mix of the latest American pop and rap—clearly enjoyed by diners—is playing on a radio.
Raphael Obonyo: From poverty to the pinnacles of power
My name is Raphael Obonyo from Kenya. I grew up in Korogocho the third-largest slum in the capital Nairobi where people live in grinding poverty.
Los museos, protagonistas de la resistencia
Afrontar las nuevas limitaciones en materia de acogida de público y al mismo tiempo redefinir nuestros vínculos con el arte y la cultura: como tantas otras instituciones del mundo el Museo de Arte de Queens de Nueva York trata de reinventarse y reflexiona sobre un modelo de museo integrador que sitúe a artistas educadores y ciudadanos en el núcleo de sus actividades.
La pandemia, espejo de nuestra vulnerabilidad
Desigualdad social violencia de género carencias en materia de vivienda y sistemas sanitarios: la crisis del COVID-19 ha desvelado las grietas que dividen a nuestras sociedades. Para cambiar el mundo tendremos que abordar problemas a los que hasta ahora no habíamos sido capaces de enfrentarnos.