Towards Gender Equality with Care-sensitive Social Protection

Unpaid care work and social protection are intrinsically linked. Women and girls’ uptake of social protection provisions is affected by their unpaid care work responsibilities. Conversely these essential provisions can help alleviate the drudgery and burden that unpaid care work places upon them. Yet despite the considerable body of research evidence that demonstrates these clear connections, unpaid care work remains largely invisible in social protection policies and programming. In order to address this challenge, policies must recognise the value of women’s work, shift the burden of care work away from women and families and improve access to the vital services that will help improve women and girls’ wellbeing.DFI

Connecting Unpaid Care Work and Childhood Development for Gains in Women and Children’s rights

Women’s rights and children’s rights directly influence each other, yet there have been few successes at tackling the agendas collaboratively thus limiting the quality of policy and practice in both areas. Integrating unpaid care concerns into early childhood development policies has the potential to positively reinforce both women’s and children’s rights. Addressing this challenge involves recognising the value of unpaid care work in relation to childcare, redistributing childcare responsibilities from women to men, and recognising that responsibility for children goes beyond the immediate family to the collective community and the state.DFI

A feminist political economy analysis of public policies related to care: a thematic review

Unpaid care work is directly linked to the economic empowerment of women and girls. There is a large and robust body of evidence about the extent of unpaid care work that women and girls do, and its contributions to both the economy and human development outcomes. But is this evidence being used to inform public policy? Doing so would include recognising the role of women and girls in the provision of unpaid care; the need to reduce the drudgery of unpaid care; and the need to redistribute unpaid care work (from women to men, and from the family to communities and the state), thus laying the basis for true gender equality. This review of secondary material aims to identify the political economy conditions of where, why, when and how unpaid care concerns become more visible on domestic policy agendas

Introduction: Connecting Perspectives on Women’s Empowerment

With the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on gender equality and women’s empowerment, debates around empowerment of women find themselves at a critical juncture of donor preferences, programmatic and movement activity and the lived experiences of women. This introductory article summarises some of the primary debates surrounding women’s empowerment across three lines: economic empowerment and its links with poverty reduction – focusing on the intersections between paid work and unpaid care work; social empowerment in terms of changes in gender norms and values; and political empowerment and mobilisation. The interconnectedness of these three domains of empowerment is important to bear in mind while looking ahead – especially with high levels of intersecting inequalities and power structures that prevent the realisation of empowerment. We conclude that a process of collective notion of empowerment that focuses on addressing structural inequality and accords primacy to women’s own agency, would go a long way towards expanding women’s opportunities and choices – in other words, realising women’s empowerment in a meaningful way

Transforming Care Dynamics: Lessons from Programme and Policy

Includes: Appendix 1: Unpaid Care Case Study EvidenceThe paper and its supporting appendix present evidence to support the four recommendations for transforming care presented in the position statement 'Addressing Unpaid Care for Economic Empowerment of Women and Girls'. These recommendations are the need for accessible public services, the need to invest in time and labour saving equipment and infrastructure services, the need to invest in initiatives to shift perceptions, norms, and gender roles, and the provision of decent work for men and women. The examples in the paper provide evidence of how the recommendations outlined are working at different scales and in different contexts.UK Department for International Developmen

No Time to Rest: Women’s Lived Experiences of Balancing Paid Work and Unpaid Care Work

This report provides evidence on the lived experiences of women in low-income families, as they strive to balance their paid work and unpaid care work responsibilities. It presents the findings of a mixed-methods research project carried out in India, Nepal, Rwanda, and Tanzania during 2015–17. The findings of the research are clear and strong: that while women welcome the chance to earn income of almost any kind, their paid work options are few and poorly paid, and by no means contribute to their ‘economic empowerment’. Most women reported effects that can only be catalogued as physically and emotionally depleting. Further, an imbalance between paid work and unpaid care work was also found to have significant depleting effects on children, because of a reduction in the amount and quality of care they received, and their augmented roles as substitute providers of care and unpaid helpers at both home and their mother’s paid work. A key conclusion of this study is that this drudgery and resultant depletion faced by women and their families is neither an inevitable nor a necessary consequence of women’s engagement in paid work. The report analyses the extent to which existing women’s economic empowerment policies and programmes can achieve empowerment for women. It calls for changes in macroeconomic contexts and urgent prioritisation of removing the structural barriers to women’s empowerment.UK Department for International DevelopmentInternational Development Research CentreHewlett Foundatio

Connecting Perspectives on Women’s Empowerment

With the formulation of the first ever internationally agreed stand-alone goal on gender equality, debates around women’s empowerment are at a critical juncture. This IDS Bulletin makes a timely contribution to our understanding of how ideas around empowerment have evolved and how we can move forward to expand women’s opportunities and choices and realise women’s empowerment in a meaningful way. Even though the importance of women’s empowerment is widely accepted, it remains a complex concept that defies precise definitions and easy measurements. Together, the articles in this special Archive Collection demonstrate the depth and breadth of a nuanced analysis of empowerment that has come out of academic scholars writing at the cutting edge of this field. The editors reflect on the interconnectedness of the economic, social and political components of empowerment. In doing so they highlight the significant gaps in policy and programming aimed at furthering processes and outcomes for women’s empowerment. Casting an eye to the future, they draw our attention to two relevant debates that merit further unpacking – that of inequality, and the question of how the Sustainable Development Goals can contribute to furthering processes of women’s empowerment and gender equality. Ultimately this IDS Bulletin reminds us that empowerment – implying an expansion of opportunities and the power to make choices – can only be realised through a collective, rather than individualised notion of empowerment that focuses on addressing structural inequality and inequitable power relations, and gives primacy to women’s agency in negotiating and challenging these structures

Democratic Governance for Social Justice: The Politics of Social Protection

This overview introduces three articles that examine some of the varying forms and dimensions of the politics of social protection policies and programmes, to give us an insight into their transformative potential. The analysis highlights the importance of the multitude of actors and their interactions that mediate the processes and outcomes of social protection programming, in both the policymaking and implementing arenas. This demands attention to institutional features of polity and policy design, interests, attitudes and beliefs, public opinion and personalised decision?making. The articles further show the importance of reflecting on how programmes and policies relate to existing forms of citizenship and rights. Rights?based social protection can distinctly identify citizens as claimants, not only to assume, foster and achieve active forms of citizenship and strengthen social contracts, to assist the successful functioning of policies, but also to empower the claimant, challenge iniquities and social injustice, and to encourage transformative outcomes