Women’s empowerment

Social protection policies play important roles in giving women access to labour markets, addressing economic risks faced by working families and helping poor households meet their basic needs.
Photo credit: “Visit to Western Kenya discussing changes in the climate and weather with men and women farmers” by Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCBY 2.0 via Flickr)
Conditionalities, Cash and Gender Relations
Is the empowerment of women through conditional cash transfers illusory as women are ‘empowered’ by these programmes only as the nodal points receiving cash for the family and not as independent persons with their own economic, social and cultural rights? First, it is important to distinguish between the positive effects of conditional cash transfers and […]
Ley 82, por la cual se expiden normas para apoyar de manera especial a la mujer cabeza de familia.
Es mujer cabeza de familia, quien siendo soltera o casada, ejerce la jefatura femenina de hogar y tiene bajo su cargo, afectiva, económica o socialmente, en forma permanente, hijos menores propios u otras personas incapaces o incapacitadas para trabajar, ya sea por ausencia permanente o incapacidad física, sensorial, síquica o moral del cónyuge o compañero […]
Ley 20.255
Para las mujeres la reforma significa un avance respecto de las injusticias establecidas por el sistema anterior. La creación del bono por hijo, la separación por género del seguro de invalidez y sobrevivencia y la división del saldo acumulado en la cuenta individual en caso de divorcio o nulidad incrementan la cobertura previsional y a […]
Social Protection: towards gender equality
Social protection has become prominent in the global development agenda over recent decades, with social protection systems now being included as a target under Sustainable Development Goal 1: “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”. In developing countries, these policies have played an important role in alleviating extreme poverty, among other impacts that are increasingly […]
Women at Work: Trends 2016
This report provides the latest ILO data on women’s position in labour markets, examines the factors behind these trends and explores the policy drivers for transformative change. The report provides a picture of where women stand today in the world of work and how they have progressed over the past 20 years. It examines the […]
Activist Perspective: Linking Social Protection and Human Rights
How does a rights-based approach support civil society organizations in their advocacy for universal access to social protection? In this video, Priti Darooka, founder and executive director of the Programme on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (India) talks about the role of human rights frameworks in supporting the organization’s approach to achieving social protection […]
Delivering Development Justice? Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
The “supremely ambitious and transformative vision” embodied in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes a goal to achieve gender equality for all women and girls and a re-commitment to governments’ human rights obligations. At the same time, governments have agreed to a range of strategies for financing the Agenda that arguably undermine their ability […]
UN Women Policy Brief Series
The UN Women policy brief series synthesizes research findings, analysis and policy recommendations on key policy areas around gender equality and women’s 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. […]