Men, women and children from indigenous peoples are estimated to represent 4.5 per cent of the world’s population. They constitute more than 5,000 different groups with distinct cultures, forms of social organization, livelihood strategies, practices, notions of poverty and wellbeing, values, and beliefs profoundly embedded in their collective relationship with...

We study economic globalization as a multidimensional process and investigate its effect on incomes. In a panel of 147 countries during 1970-2014, we apply a new instrumental variable, exploiting globalization’s geographically diffusive character, and find differential gains from globalization both across and within countries: Income gains are substantial for...

New estimates show that just eight men own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world. As growth benefits the richest, the rest of society – especially the poorest – suffers. The very design of our economies and the principles of our economics have taken us 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...

In recent years, the World Bank and IMF have played an influential role in shaping national social protection policies. Social protection comprises a significant share of World Bank loans, reaching almost 10 per cent of lending to low-income countries in 2017, while around 10 per cent of IMF loans...

Many discussions have taken place in Brazil about legislation pertaining to the Tax on Large Fortunes (Imposto sobre Grandes Fortunas—IGF). In the current scenario, with the country facing a second consecutive annual decrease in tax revenue, the subject of the implementation of the IGF is gaining some traction, with...

This report takes stock of the changing nature of increasingly complex risks in Asia and the Pacific, and the stresses and shocks that are affecting a diverse region’s prospects for achieving the SDGs. It highlights the effects of selected natural hazards, commodity shocks and pollution shocks on the region’s...

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...

The definition of child vulnerability used in Kenya’s social protection sector was shaped in the early 2000s, when policymakers noted an increasing number of orphans as a consequence of the AIDS pandemic and developed the National Plan of Action for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC). Kenya’s Cash Transfer for...

In spite of the rising global interest in inequality, emerging economies have not been studied enough, due to the lack of sufficient data and differences in economic and social structures. It is important to measure the extent of inequality to understand the growth trajectories of these economies and the...

The World Inequality Report 2018 relies on a cutting-edge methodology to measure income and wealth inequality in a systematic and transparent manner. By developing this report, the World Inequality Lab seeks to fill a democratic gap and to equip various actors of society with the necessary facts to engage in informed...

The Inclusive Development Index (IDI) is an annual assessment of 103 countries’ economic performance that measures how countries perform on eleven dimensions of economic progress in addition to GDP. It has 3 pillars; growth and development; inclusion and; intergenerational equity – sustainable stewardship of natural and financial resources. The...

In the decade since the 2008 global economic crisis, fiscal austerity has become the new normal. In the name of fiscal discipline, governments in more than two-thirds of countries throughout the world have enacted drastic austerity measures like severe public expenditure cuts, regressive tax changes, and labor market and...

Despite the recent increase of empirical research and conceptual development in transparency and accountability, much of this has been on the side of citizen action, looking at why and how citizens mobilize around accountability demands and at what makes their actions successful. Comparatively, there has been much less work...

This report provides a comprehensive and authoritative assessment of progress, gaps and challenges in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals from a gender perspective. It monitors global and regional trends in achieving the SDGs for women and girls based on available data, and provides practical guidance for the implementation of...

Girls’ rights are human rights. Yet, millions of girls continue to struggle to claim their rights. Girls are disproportionally disadvantaged in education, health, work and family life – particularly in the world’s poorest countries. When factors like poverty, ethnicity or disability intersect and where gender stereotyping and unequal power...

Food security is universally recognized as paramount to human well-being. But what exactly does it mean, and what is required to achieve food security? A comprehensive definition put forward by the World Food Summit in 1996 holds that “food security [is] a situation that exists when all people, at...

Persons with disabilities in the Arab region, as elsewhere in the world, are one of the most marginalized and excluded population groups. They are often not visible in public life, as the social and physical environments remain inaccessible, and they are disproportionally affected by crises and disasters. Reporting on...

This brief outlines transgender and gender non-conforming persons’ right to adequate sanitation facilities in public...

This report analyses key job quality indicators, devoting particular attention to informality, underemployment and temporary employment. It also takes stock of structural sectoral shifts and ageing, two long-term trends likely to add further pressures on the labour...

Since 2015, FEANTSA and the Fondation Abbé Pierre have released a yearly Overview of Housing Exclusion in Europe. These annual reports look at the latest Eurostat data (EU-SILC) and assess EU countries’ capacity to adequately house their populations. The 2017 version reveals alarming evidence of rising homelessness across the majority of...

ILO, in collaboration with Gallup, surveyed men and women in 2016 to understand their perceptions about women and work. The results, based on interviews with nearly 149,000 adults in 142 countries and territories, suggest that women might find support in their quest for productive employment and decent work coming...