The ILO’s General Survey 2019 , compiled by the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR). The Survey (published under the title Universal social protection for human dignity, social justice and sustainable development) focuses on the ILO’s Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202), which calls for...

Adolescence is recognized as a window of opportunity for offsetting childhood disadvantage and altering life trajectories. With more than one billion adolescents in the world, and many countries in the Global South experiencing a youth bulge, there is increasing urgency for national governments and donors to provide greater support,...

The gig economy – in which digital platforms link workers with the purchasers of their services – is growing globally. Yet there has been little research to date on its impacts in low- and middle-income countries or on gendered experiences of gig work. This lack of knowledge critically limits...

This report examines the role that social enterprise is playing in addressing gender inequality and women’s empowerment in the US, where women earn 65 cents for every dollar earned by a man and are chronically under-represented in positions of leadership. It is one of a series of reports on...

The World Bank’s World Development Reports (WDRs), with some notable exceptions, are not known for their gender analysis. Even then, the 2019 edition, The Changing Nature of Work, stands out as remarkably gender blind. For starters, it almost completely ignores one of the most invisible and deeply gendered features...

Women’s economic empowerment has gained increasing attention within the global development agenda in recent years, bolstered by the adoption of a range of relevant targets within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. Yet the specific experiences of older women often remain underexplored and unrecognised, leaving them invisible to...

Women’s economic empowerment has gained increasing attention within the global development agenda in recent years, bolstered by the adoption of a range of relevant targets within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. Yet the specific experiences of older women often remain underexplored and unrecognised, leaving them invisible to...

In the present report, the Independent Expert discusses the impact of economic reforms, in particular austerity and fiscal consolidation measures, on women’s human rights. He argues that the prevailing current economic system is based on various forms of gender discrimination. The value of unpaid work and its contribution to...

The Laws Regional standards: Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) which secures the rights and freedoms of the ECHR without discrimination, read with the right to respect for family life under Article 8 and the protection of property rights in Article 1 of the First...

In many countries the majority of those experiencing domestic violence are in paid employment. Maintaining employment and economic independence is a critical pathway to reducing the impacts of domestic violence of homelessness and unemployment. Yet, the workplace is not firmly part of an integrated global response to reducing the...

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...

UK Court expands definition of domestic violence in context of housing rights The Supreme Court of the UK confirmed that the legal definition of the word ‘violence’ expands beyond physical contact, to encompass emotional and psychological as well as financial abuse, for the purposes of being classified as homeless...

The report analyses the ways in which unpaid care work is recognized and organized, the extent and quality of care jobs and their impact on the well-being of individuals and society. A key focus of this report is the persistent gender inequalities in households and the labour market, which...

This is a toolkit for trade unions, voluntary organisations, community groups and others who want to assess the human rights and equality impact of the spending cuts on women in their communities. Although the toolkit focuses on women and the cuts, much of the information it contains can be...

This report looks at how women have fared through recession and austerity. It finds that while progress on some headline measures of gender equality has continued – the employment and pay gap have continued to narrow, for example – some women are facing new hardships and barriers to...

Ten years since the global economic crisis, social and human rights protections have fallen victim to austerity measures in countries across the globe. Preventing another “lost decade” will require us to see human rights values not as merely collateral damage of economic policy, but as cogent and universal norms...

Air pollution affects workers’ ability to work by damaging their own health, but also by damaging the health of their dependents. This paper draws on 20 years of air pollution and employment data from Santiago, Chile, a highly polluted metropolis, particularly in fall and winter months. The paper finds...

The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. It replaced previous anti-discrimination laws with a single Act, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection in some situations. It sets out the different ways in which it’s unlawful to treat...

The purpose of this Policy & Strategy document is to outline policy statements of the Ministry of Health in support of Reproductive Health including maternal and neonatal health, demonstrating its contribution to the achievement of improved health and wellbeing in Fiji. It maps out a framework of key strategic...

The eGov4women is a public resource on the design and implementation of gender-responsive e-government institutional ecosystems. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by UN Member States in 2015 affirms that “the spread of information and communication technology and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate human progress, to...

Investments which support households to better meet their unpaid care responsibilities – such as childcare, food preparation and laundry – can yield substantial returns in terms of macro-economic growth, job creation and other key government priorities. This briefing looks at selected evidence and examples and argues that governments should:...

Care (whether paid or unpaid) is crucial to human well-being and to the pattern of economic development. Some analysts emphasize the significance of care for economic dynamism and growth. Others see care in much larger terms, as part of the fabric of society and integral to social development. Citizenship...

The Unified Workers’ Central (Central Única dos Trabalhadores, CUT) of Brazil, one of the world’s largest trade union federations, the most important in Latin America, and the country’s most representative, in 2015 implemented gender parity in its decision making bodies at national and state level. With this step it...

Despite progress in education and health worldwide, women still face significant barriers to engage as full economic citizens. There are significant gender gaps in wages and labour market participation. In many cases, women also face barriers and lack the assets needed to become entrepreneurs. These inequalities remain large, persistent...

Recent research carried out in four countries (India, Nepal, Tanzania and Rwanda) under the framework of the Growth and Equal Opportunities for Women (GrOW) programme has highlighted the drudgery of both paid work and unpaid care work faced by women in poor families, leading to the depletion of their...