Global

The Action Plan relies on this policy framework; it is not designed to replace the gender mainstreaming strategy, but rather to advance its implementation.  The Plan defines a concrete four-year road map to intensify the implementation of the gender mainstreaming strategy in the economic sectors.  Execution of this roadmap would give gender issues more traction institutionally and would position the Bank to be a global leader on the issue of women's economic empowerment.

The different processes associated with globalisation have led to rising rates of paid work by women often in contexts where male employment is stagnant or declining. This paper explores how women and men are dealing with this feminisation of labour markets in the face of the widespread prevalence of male breadwinner ideologies and the apparent threat to male authority represented by women's earnings. Responses have varied across the world but there appears to be a remarkable resistance to changes in the domestic division of unpaid work within the household and a continuing failure on the part of policymakers to provide support for women's care responsibilities, despite the growing importance of their breadwinning roles. Many of the services previously provided on an unpaid basis are being transferred to the paid economy but most working women continue to bear a disproportionate burden of domestic responsibility. There is evidence that women may be using their newly acquired earning power to challenge the injustice of the double work burden in ways that pose a challenge to long-term processes of social reproduction.

This discussion paper is an outcome of two converging initiatives.  Firstly, in order to assess the work accomplished by the ILO on Decent Work and women-specific and gender equality topics, an initial mapping exercise on existing research conducted by Headquarters and field offices was undertaken in 2007.  The first findings from this mapping exercise were presented at the Workshop "Gender Equality and Decent Work: Towards a Comprehensive Research Strategy" in May 2007

Established in 1997, WIEGO is dedicated to supporting the work of women in the informal sector, and its agenda is driven by their circumstances and meets. Led by HomeNet, StreetNet and WIEGO, this fast-expand global movement of and on behalf of low income women who work in the informal sector is a unique example of women who work in the informal sector is a unique example of the joint action of unions and other grassroots organisations of working women with research institutions and international development agencies.