IWD 2017 CPAN Blog series: #2 - The poorest women have a right to earn and spend their own money too!

IWD 2017 CPAN Blog series: #2 - Why do we think women’s economic empowerment matters so much? Without it, many women cannot demand the right to go out to work, run their own business, own land or other assets or control the money that they earn. Without being able to do these things, getting out of poverty is difficult, and their children may also not get the good start in life they need to escape poverty.

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Share the burden! Why unpaid domestic and care work should be top of the agenda

In 2014 the OECD Development Centre produced a policy brief arguing that throughout the world women spend between two and ten times as much time on unpaid care work as men; and that this gender inequality is the missing link in explaining gender gaps in levels of employment, wages and job quality. For the poorest women in the poorest countries this gender inequality is magnified as the burden of unpaid domestic and care work is relatively greater, and especially so if we include within it domestic food production. We need to put unpaid care and domestic work firmly on the agenda whenever we talk about the economic empowerment of women. And then we need to find ways to value, support it, and share it out. 

Photograph: Panos Pictures

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