Urbanisation has historically led more women to enter the workforce, but this has not been the case in South Asia. Could a focus on social norms explain why? Continue reading Urbanisation vs. tradition: The paradox of female labour force participation in South Asia
By Pierre de Boisséson, Economist, and Hyeshin Park, Gender Programme Co-ordinator, OECD Development Centre
We all have biases when it comes to gender roles. From pre-conceived ideas about the kinds of roles men and women take on at home to the types of jobs for which they are suited. Shockingly, a significant portion of the population believes that men should have more rights and opportunities than women. While easily overlooked, these outdated ideas actually have staggering socio-economic ripple effects – limiting women’s agency and costing societies billions, if not trillions, of dollars in lost GDP.
Continue reading “Breaking the chains: how to overcome gender biases for true equality”
By Anzetse Were, Senior Economist at FSD Kenya
Women’s contributions to economic output and baseline economic welfare tend to be underestimated due the double injustice of unpaid care work and unpaid work. This double injustice denies women of the compensation, reward, recognition and upward income mobility that come with performing economic tasks – even when the output of those tasks is counted in official calculations. Most often, unpaid care work is neither formally counted as economic output, nor is it compensated. Instead, it is seen as women’s responsibility, due to their gender. This ultimately means that the immense amount of time, effort and skill women (and girls) put into the economy is invisible.
Continue reading “How women stabilise and grow economies in Africa”
By Bathylle Missika, Head of Division – Networks, Partnerships and Gender, OECD Development Centre, and Mathias Vicherat Secretary General of Danone and co-chair of the OECD Development Centre’s EMnet Working Group on Sustainability
This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.
Although men seem to be hit harder by COVID-19 than women from a medical perspective, the economic and health impact on women is becoming increasingly severe as the disease spreads around the world, and may well prove particularly devastating in emerging and developing economies. When crafting responses and recovery plans, governments and businesses must pay special attention to how the pandemic and the resulting crisis affect women and girls and how to address their specific needs. This will be key to both containing the economic and social fallout of the crisis, but also to facilitating recovery.
Continue reading “The gender dimension of COVID-19: a wake-up call for business”
By Salma Al-Rashid, Women 20 Engagement Group Sherpa for the G20
This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.
2020 is a pivotal year for public policy, with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting at least 183 countries. Countries and multinational institutions are struggling as the pandemic not only tests our healthcare systems but creates chaos in our economies with implications far beyond previous financial crises. There is a danger, illuminated by the absence of any language around gender at the G20 Extraordinary virtual Summit on COVID-19 that the important strides made in the last fifteen years to balance women in policymaking are at risk. The consequences of this would be short-sighted as we start to rebuild economic sectors and labour forces.
Continue reading “COVID-19: time for gender inclusive decision-making”
By Gabriela Bucher, Chief Operating Officer, Plan International
Why representation is key to eliminating gender-based violence.
We entered Women’s Month during a landmark year for girls’ and women’s rights, when a number of hallmark standards for women’s human rights globally — from the Beijing Declaration to the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 — are being reviewed and renewed. But decades after these agreements were signed, millions of girls and women remain subject to gender-based violence. 84 million girls worldwide are trapped in child marriages and subject to intimate partner violence. 3 million girls are still at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM) every year. It’s time for drastic action.
Gender-based violence is rooted in outdated, entrenched and deeply harmful attitudes about gender that pervade in our societies. The Social Institutions and Gender Index shows that intimate partner violence, for example, is higher in countries where it is most socially accepted. To eliminate gender-based violence around the world we must tackle the problem at its source by unpicking harmful gender norms, beginning at an early age and empowering young people to becoming ambassadors for gender equality within their own communities. Continue reading “To be it, girls and boys need to see it”
By Ravi Verma, Regional Director, International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)
A friend told me recently, “While I am able to fight against the rules set for me and continue my struggle to do so, I feel helpless about my father and brothers. I realise and openly acknowledge how they have also been victims of rules and norms set by what we call “Patriarchy”. Unfortunately, the rules for them have remained unchanged, they seem to have been frozen in time.”
Continue reading “Are Men Frozen in Time? We Need to Transform rigid Masculinities”
By Gaëlle Ferrant, Economist, and Estelle Loiseau, Gender Programme Officer, OECD Development Centre
Three million girls are still at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM) every year. Twenty-five years after adopting the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (articles 39 and 93) and five years after setting the Sustainable Development Goal 5.3, which both call for the eradication of FGM, the world has failed to protect its women and girls. An estimated 200 million girls and women in Africa, the Middle East and Asia have fallen victim to FGM. However, the practice is not restricted to these regions only: 600 000 women in Europe and 513 000 women and girls in the United States have undergone FGM. These figures are unacceptable, especially when the exact total number remains unknown and is likely underestimated.
By Felix Zimmermann, Co-ordinator, Development Communication Network (DevCom), OECD Development Centre
With individual actions, we can all help the world achieve gender equality. That is the message behind #GenerationEquality, the theme for International Women’s Day on Sunday, 8 March. While #GenerationEquality is easily tweeted, the 2019 Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) [1] tells us that, around the world, discrimination remains deeply entrenched. Many countries have enacted laws to protect women’s rights. But laws can be easier to change than attitudes and behaviours. Shockingly, SIGI tells us that almost 1 in 3 women around the world still believe that spousal violence is sometimes justified. Almost 1 in 2 people think that men make better political leaders than women.
To eradicate harmful practices and achieve gender equality, we need to change attitudes and shift gender norms.[2] The evidence confirms that those of us communicating for development have crucial roles to play. We can expose people to new ideas, encouraging them to reflect on their discriminatory attitudes or emulate positive role models. We can raise awareness about new laws and the benefits of gender equality, such as happiness or economic growth. UK-based think tank ODI shows how media initiatives like the interactive SSMK radio show helped transform the lives of adolescent girls in Nepal.
By Gary Barker, President and CEO, Promundo-US
This blog is a part of the OECD High-Level Conference on Ending Violence Against Women
#MeToo has led to an unprecedented global calling out of men’s use of violence against women — whether harassment, sexual assault or intimate partner violence. In addition, the last 10 years have seen advances in legal protections for survivors of violence and a massive expansion of research on what works, and what does not, to prevent gender-based violence. With all of this, men’s voices and actions, as allies, actors, and as partners in preventing gender-based violence are often either missing or silent. First, we should start by saying what we mean by gender-based violence (GBV). The phrase, while useful and necessary, often leads us to overlook the fact that we are mostly talking about men’s violence against women – harassment, sexual assault, physical, sexual, economic intimate partner violence in the home by male partners against female partners, and sexual exploitation, among others.
Continue reading “Where are men in the drive to end violence against women?”
