CHALLENGES IN ADDRESSING GENDER INEQUALITY: THE WORK AHEAD

MARIA S. FLOROProfessor of Economics

American UniversityWashington DC, USA

1Gender Equality in the MENA Region

Introducing Lucia, a 2nd grader in Santa Maria, Guatemala and her classmates

2Gender Equality in the MENA Region

Where is she now and what will she become…

Her identity

determined by

social expectations

her aspirations

opportunities open for her

Gender Equality in the MENA Region 3

Her identity

gender

ethnicity

economic status

culture

citizenship

location

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Regarding laws on property rights and inheritance…

5

Reference: UNWOMEN, Progress of the World’s Women (2015), Figure 1.2, p.31.

Gender Equality in the MENA Region

Extent of gender inequality indicator

0.546

0.331 0.317

0.416

0.5390.578

Arab States East Asia andthe Pacific

Europe andCentral Asia

LatinAmerica and

the Caribbean

South Asia Sub-SaharanAfrica

Gender Inequality Index

6Source: UNDP, Human Development Reports. All figures for 2013.

Gender Equality in the MENA Region

Lifetime prevalence of intimate partner violence (physical, or sexual) among ever-partnered women

7Gender Equality in the MENA Region

Reference: Duvvury (2014)

8Gender Equality in the MENA RegionReference: Beneria, Berik and Floro (2015)

Embedded in institutions, structures and processes

Households, communities,

kinship systems

Educational system and materials

Markets: labor, credit, land

Laws: family, property, labor,

investment, business

Religion Culture

Media

Knowledge building e.g. economic

theories and data collection

Political institutions

Decision-making processes and procedures

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Why is it persistent?

Patriarchy

• ethnicity• race• class

Interconnected with other persistent inequalities

• Dominance of neoliberalism• Authoritarian regimes

Useful instrument for maintaining privilege, control, and power

[Plus ça change]

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Used to work in a small factory making hand-crafted dolls for export for several years before 2009.

By 2011, Rani is working as a daily house cleaner, earning 1,000 rupees a month.

Besides the decline in her earnings, what depresses Rani is her shift from a “stable factory job” to the status of a casual worker cleaning different houses.

To Rani, “America” and “recession” were meaningless words. She doesn’t understand why her job disappeared so suddenly. Explanation of the global financial crisis brings only an exasperated query from her:

“But why should something that happens ten thousand miles away affect me?”

Introducing Rani, a 42-year-old woman in South India

Joined by many other women…

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Source: World Development Indicators, World DataBank. All latest figures in 2013 except Jordan (2012), Kuwait (2011), Lebanon (2007), Morroco (2008), Syria (2011), Tunisia (2011) and West Bank and Gaza (2010). Gender Equality in the MENA Region

About globalization

Uneven process Diverse contexts Laws of motion set by capital

accumulation Rise and consolidation of neoliberalism Commercialization and financialization Concentration of wealth and

proletarianization

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Globalization Mixed effect on gender inequality◦ Liberating◦ Intensifying◦ Reconstituting

New tensions Formal changes vs. resilient norms,

attitudes and practices Increasing differentiation among women Widening forms of vulnerability

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Women, men and children of Tacloban City, Leyte, Philippines in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan

Gender Equality in the MENA Region 15Photo taken by Guardian (2013)

More challenges ahead

Rising inequality Good in creating more conflicts Caught up on accumulation of wealth and

ever increasing consumption Feeble action to address climate change

and environmental degradation

Gender Equality in the MENA Region 16

Water and climate change in the MENA Region

Droughts and severelydepleted aquifers• 85% of MENA region’s

annual water use is for agriculture

• Increasing conflict aroundwater resource• <1% of global water

resources• Examples: Jordan River,

Tigris and EuphratesRivers, Nile River, Jubbaand Shabele, Disi/SaqAquifer, etc.

Gender Concerns• Hunger and food security• Managing common property

resources• Increasing conflicts• Livelihood impact• Unpaid work burden

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A few lessons from our own journey towards integrating gender in development

Rethinking development paradigm and strategies

Building bridges towards cooperation and collective action

Change requires social movements

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Example: “Accounting for Women’s Work Project” A collective endeavor by scholars,

women’s groups, the UN, donors, international institutions, and some governments to make women’s work visible to society and policymakers

Key objective: to obtain a full account of women’s contributions to human welfare

Floro_ASSA 2014 presentation 19

Historical, systematic bias against unremunerated work 1. Theoretical bias in the economics discipline

2. Exclusion in conceptualization of ‘economy’ and ‘work’ since 1954

3. Invisibility in data and statistics

Floro_ASSA 2014 presentation 20

Progress has been slooww

1993: some unpaid work officially acknowledged and added to System of National Accounts (SNA)

Improvements in collecting information Collection of time use survey data

Floro_ASSA 2014 presentation 21

Transformative

Making a broader impact, that transcends the initial

concerns raised by feminists

challenges the biases in output and labor force statistics

critiques the underlying conceptual and

methodological conventions regarding unpaid work

exposes the biases embedded in conventional economic models

and analyses

promotes care agenda in the context of sustainable human

development

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How much does household production contribute to provisioning for human life?

Country Year

Estimated value of household production

(satellite account to SNA)

(billions)

Currency % of GDP*

Finland 2001 62.80 € 33.10

Germany 2001 820.00 € 29.40

Finland 2001 57.27 € 31.00

Germany 2001 1008.00 € 34.00

Australia 2000 471.00 2002 AUS$ 43.80

Canada 1998 297.30 CAN$ 33.00United Kingdom 2000 877.30 £ 37.40

23Gender Equality in the MENA RegionReference: Beneria, Berik and Floro (2015)

Making care economy visible in Colombia

Passage of National Law 1413 in 2010 requiring the government:

“to measure the contributions of women to the economic and social development of the country and to serve as fundamental tool for the design and implementation of public policies”

(Lopez et al. 2013)Gender Equality in the MENA Region 24

Reform at global level:New definition of work in 2013

19th ICLS resolution redefines the concept of work and provides a framework for their measurement.

Resolution identifies 5 types of work that are done by persons over 15 years of age: Unpaid own-production work Employment work Unpaid trainee work Unpaid volunteer work Other unpaid work

Floro_ASSA 2014 presentation 25

Gender equality in the MENA region: what does it take?

Struggle for gender equality is a shared task

Collective effort to bring about governance reforms to tackle inequality and injustice in various forms

Require cooperation and coalition work of scholars, donors, international organizations, environmentalists, grassroots community organizations.

Make words into deeds

Floro_ASSA 2014 presentation 26

Thank you.

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