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UN Women Discussion Papers
The UN Women discussion paper series is a new initiative led by the Research and Data section of UN Women, to provide grounded, fresh and robust perspectives on some of the contemporary challenges to achieving gender equality and women’s rights, and offer insights into policy innovations that are making a difference in women’s lives. The series is a space for leading feminist researchers to share original, substantive research from different national and regional contexts. Before being published, each paper benefits from an anonymous external peer review process by experts, so that the final product is a high quality and relevant piece of research that contributes to further scholarship in the field.
41 - 45 of 45 results
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Economic Growth and Social Reproduction
Author: Elissa BraunsteinPublication Date: September 2015More LessThis work develops a set of regimes that link structures of economic growth with those of social reproduction. These regimes are then linked to groups of countries organized by economic structure and level of development to evaluate the macroeconomic consequences of a decline in gender inequality in the labour market. Social reproduction is defined in terms of the time and money it takes to produce, maintain and invest in the labour force, so it includes both paid and unpaid care work. The analytical emphasis is on how the distributions of production and reproduction among women, men, the state and capital determine investment and growth and how gender inequality is both cause and consequence of these relationships.
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Gender Equality and Human Rights
Authors: Sandra Fredman and Beth GoldblattPublication Date: July 2015More LessThere is a strong commitment to equality between women and men in international human rights law. The various actors within the treaty system who are tasked with elaborating on the meaning of human rights in international law have given close attention to gender equality. This work evaluates these elaborations against a conception of equality that is substantive. The achievement of substantive equality is understood here as having four dimensions: redressing disadvantage; countering stigma, prejudice, humiliation and violence; transforming social and institutional structures; and facilitating political participation and social inclusion. The publication suggests that there is a growing consensus at the international level on an understanding of substantive equality that reflects the four dimensions set out here. Making this understanding explicit will assist in addressing, through a range of means, the challenges of gendered inequality.
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Child-Related Financial Transfers and Early Childhood Education and Care
Author: Mary DalyPublication Date: July 2015More LessThis publication examines policies for the support of families with children, in particular child-related financial transfers and early childhood education and care (ECEC) services. The analysis is mainly focused on countries with institutionalized welfare states—primarily Western European and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries—because that is where child-related benefits and services have the longest history. The work highlights a number of core insights relevant to policy planning and decision-making for child-related transfers and ECEC services.
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Expanding Health-Care Access in the United States
Authors: Randy Albelda and Diana Salas CoronadoPublication Date: July 2015More LessThe United States has never assured the human right to health, including the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health and access to all medical services. While there is some public financing of health care, mainly for older people and low-income children, the country largely relies on private health insurers and providers using a decentralized and lightly regulated market-based system. This publication focuses on the ways in which women have been impacted by the Affordable Care Act (usually referred to as ACA or ‘Obamacare’).
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The Gender Dimensions of Pension Systems
Author: Camila ArzaPublication Date: July 2015More LessGender equality is one of the key challenges confronted by pension systems around the world. In a context of gendered labour markets, contributory pension systems face several constraints to guarantee universal and adequate pension benefits for women. Women’s life courses are characterized by longer periods dedicated to taking care of others, lower labour market participation, more part-time work and lower earnings. All these features compromise their pension entitlements in pension systems that link benefits to paid work, contributions and earnings. This publication deals with the challenges and constraints that pension systems face to be gender equitable and the policy alternatives to address these challenges. This work shows that crucial policy choices for the protection of women concern the conditions for entitlements in pension systems (based on either work, need or citizenship), the types of transfers that are promoted between women and men, the policy tools available to offset gender differences in paid work, earnings and unpaid work (such as contribution credits) and the protection of the most vulnerable social groups through redistributive benefits.
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