Women in Economic and Social Life
Background Paper for the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice
Mayra Gómez[1]
Table of Contents
1.Introduction
2.Understanding women’s economic and social rights
2.1The legal basis for women’s economic and social rights
2.2Advancing gender sensitive interpretations of economic and social rights
2.3Understanding the obligations of States at the intersection of the rights to non-discrimination and equality and economic and social rights
2.4Temporary special measures
3.Women’s economic and social rights throughout the life cycle
3.1Multiple and intersecting discrimination and inequalities
3.2Education
3.3Women’s work: Formal and informal, paid and unpaid
3.4Maternity and child care
3.5Housing
3.6Food and nutrition
3.7Land and property
3.8Water and sanitation
3.9Social security and social protection
3.10Austerity and women’s rights
4.Accountability for women’s economic and social rights
4.1The role of the International Human Rights System
4.2Gender budgeting as a tool for monitoring and accountability
4.3International and regional economic/financial actors and agencies
4.4Thoughts on the post-2015 development framework
5.Recommendations
5.1Recommendations for States
5.2Recommendations for United Nations Human Rights Bodies
5.3Recommendations to International and Regional Economic/Financial Actors and Agencies
Annex 1: Specific Guidance and Recommendations Relevant to Women’s Economic and Social Rights under CEDAW
Annex 2: Specific Guidance and Comments Relevant to Women’s Economic and Social Rights under ICESCR
1.Introduction
“Women’s economic, social and cultural rights must be a primary strategy in addressing and remedying women’s inequality.”
-Primer on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights[2]
This paper addresses discrimination against women in economic and social life, with a focus on economic and financial crisis. While much has been written about the recent global economic and financial crises, and while some attention has been given to how these crises have impacted women, less attention has been given to understanding these impacts through an international human rights lens – and in particular through the lens of women’s economic and social rights. This paperaims in part to help fill that gap.
However, women’s economic and social rights are fundamental at all times, not only during times of crisis. Economic and social rights – including the rights to the highest attainable standard of health,[3] to adequate housing, to work and to just and favorable conditions of work, to water and sanitation, to education, to social security, and to food and nutrition – are all vital to women’s equality and to their ability to live a life of dignity. Yet, in all parts of the world and in all areas of economic and social rights, women are disproportionately disadvantaged and face unique challenges because of their gender. Even today, in many respects women lag far behind men when it comes to the actual enjoyment of economic and social rights, and in this way it can be said that women are marginalized within the domain of economic and social rights.
In addition, it can also be said that economic and social rights are themselves marginalized within the broader domain of human rights, and this is a related problem which must also be brought to light and remedied. Despite repeated commitments from the international community that all human rights – be they civil, cultural, economic, political, or social – are “universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated”[4] and that they must be all be treated “on the same footing,”[5] it is nonetheless true that economic and social rights as a subset of human rights have been relegated to the sidelines when it comes to international and national policy discourse and debates. This is particularly true in the area of economic policy, where the goal of‘growth’ is often privileged over the enjoyment of human rights, and where the needs of the poorest and of the most marginalized do not factor into routine decision making. Yet, civil society continues to push for the centrality and primacy of economic and social rights, as can be seen in recent debates related to the post-2015 development agenda.[6]
The burden borne of those choices has not been shouldered equally by all. For women to achieve the gender equality that is their right, the prevailing attitude towards economic and social rights must change. Economic and social rights must garner the same prominence and status as other human rights, and they (along with all human rights) must be givenprimacy over any other policy area, as stated in Article 1 of the Vienna Declaration of 1993: “Human rights and fundamental freedoms are the birthright of all human beings; their protection and promotion is the first responsibility of Governments.”[7] States are first and foremost responsible to ensure that all human rights are respected, protected, promoted, and fulfilled.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, enshrines civil and political rights for women alongside their economic, social and cultural rights. CEDAW provides an important legal basis and framework for women’s economic and social rights and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has played an especially critical role in advancing a holistic view of women’s rights which encompasses all dimensions.
The quality of women’s economic and social life over the course of their life cycle mirrors to a large degree the extent to which they are able to enjoy their human rights – including their economic and social rights – and the extent to which these rights are upheld in practice. To be sure, women’s economic and social life is deeply connected to their public and political life, and in reality these aspects cannot be easily compartmentalized. While many States now include legal guarantees of non-discrimination and equality in their Constitutions, fewer States enshrine economic and social rights at this highest level of national law (although to some extent this is also changing). However, equality provisions within national law must be interpreted to extend to, and protect women’s economic and social rights.
In addition, because the right to equality is not subject to progressive realization, it is an immediate obligation of States to ensure that women are able to enjoy their right to equality within economic and social spheres. Here a substantive and indivisible approach must be used in order to ensure that women enjoy their right to equality in the de facto sense (i.e. ‘equality of results’ and not only de jureequality). Immediacy of obligations can be contrasted with the notion of progressivity, the latter of which has been described by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as “a necessary flexibility device,” which, while it applies to the general realization of an economic or social right, cannot be said to apply to women’s right to equality.[8]
With this understanding in mind, there are two challenges which lay ahead. The first is to raise the profile of economic and social rights, and within that, to shine a bright light on women’s experiences and realities. Addressing these two challenges underpin the structure and content of this paper.
Women’s Economic and Social Rightsin Crisis
While women’s economic and social rights are fundamental at all times, the recent economic and financial crisis does help to illuminate the gaps that exist in the protection of these rights, as well as to clarify the consequences for women across the world when States fail to meet their human rights obligations. Therefore, the economic and financial crisis offers a kind of window to understanding women’s economic and social rights, and the real-world responses of States have illustrated how economic and social policy measures can be protective or hostile towards women’s rights. This paper addresses some of these consequences, and the various ways in which State policy has impacted women.
To set the stage for this discussion we must say a few words at the outset about the global economic crisis of 2007-2009. That crisis has had a range of devastating consequences around the world, and it is perhaps hard to overstate the nature and scope of the ramifications. Some economists have put it this way:
By now, the tectonic damage left by the global financial crisis of 2007-09 has been well documented. World per capita output, which typically expands by about 2.2 percent annually, contracted by 1.8 percent in 2009, the largest contraction the global economy experienced since World War II. During the crisis, markets around the world experienced colossal disruptions in asset and credit markets, massive erosions of wealth, and unprecedented numbers of bankruptcies. Five years after the crisis began, its lingering effects are still all too visible in advanced countries and emerging markets alike: the global recession left in its wake a worldwide increase of 30 million in the number of people unemployed. These are painful reminders of why there is a need to improve our understanding of financial crises.[9]
For developing nations and the economies of the Global South, economic crisis has been on the one hand all too common, and on the other hand, all too often overlooked by the international community. In one International Monetary Fund (IMF) study, researchers covering the period from 1970-2007 showed that “of the 124 banking crises and 208 currency crises, 62% took place in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean combined, while only 6% took place in advanced economies (OECD countries, except Mexico and South Korea).”[10] However, because of financial contagion effects as well as the global economic recession, financial markets in developing countries have been severely impacted within the most recent global crisis, as well.[11]
In light of the dramatic global consequences, in the wake of the crisis a critical space has been opened – particularly for human rights advocates, progressive and feminist economists, environmental activists, and civil society movements around the world – to question the fundamental assumptions which have long underpinned the global economy. This is a vital opportunity for the world. While it may seem abstract and removed, the truth is that every person – regardless of where they live or what their lives are like – is very intimately impacted by global economic decisions. International agencies such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) have observed that “[a] key lesson from the global financial and economic crisis is that policies for economic growth which have prevailed over the past three decades need a rethink.”[12]
Many have argued that the global economic neo-liberal model is fundamentally flawed in various ways: financially flawed as it operates with high levels of debt, socially flawed because it concentrates extreme amounts of wealth in the hands of a few elite, and environmentally flawed because it commodifies nature and sacrifices ecological sustainability, all the while revering ‘growth’ as its overarching driver and rationale.[13]
It is a subject of intense debate as to whether certain macro-economic policies[14] not only further economic and social inequality,[15] but also produce economic crisis as a matter of course.[16] Nonetheless, as the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs has pointed out: “Even before the current financial and economic crisis, questions had been raised about the core assumption that fiscal discipline and restrictive monetary policies, combined with the liberalization of markets, would deliver on economic growth and poverty reduction. That assumption has not been borne out by the evidence.”[17]
From a women’s rights perspective, what is clear is that economic crises have a disproportionate impact on women. Researchers have highlighted that in general men are better positioned to weather economic crisis. In general, men have more economic security as they have higher paying jobs along with more assets and wealth. Their jobs are more likely to offer benefits, such as health care and pensions, and be covered by unemployment insurance.[18]
On the whole, though the specific effects of the crisis differ by context, the overall picture is one of deepening economic insecurity for women and an increase in women’s burden of unpaid care work.[19] There has also been a broad recognition amongst feminist economists and others that the underlying macro-economic structures which gave rise to the crisis in the first place are the very same structures which also perpetuate restrictions of women’s economic opportunities compared to men’s.[20] Therefore, addressing the crisis provides an opportunity to address patterns of gender inequality and discrimination which have too long existed as the economic status quo. In fact, the Global Jobs Pact, adopted by ILO member States also in 2009 underscores this message, stating that the “current crisis should be viewed as an opportunity to shape new gender equality policy responses.”[21]
Despite this opportunity, Government responses to the economic crisis have not always taken gender into account. In fact, it could be said that they have rarely taken gender into account. In Europe, for example, which has strong regional standards on women’s rights and gender equality, the European Economic Recovery Plan made no mention of the words “gender,”“‘women” or “equality,” an absence which some have highlighted as “symbolic of a low sensibility towards gender equality in responding to the crisis.”[22] Indeed, the European Commission’s Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men found that “[i]n the urgency of the crisis it appears that, to date, little attention has been given to ensuring that gender is taken into account when formulating policy responses.”[23] With respect to the G20, which has emerged as an influential new global actor in the wake of the economic crisis, some economists have argued that “the G20 has not seriously considered the consequences for women and men when formulating policies and setting its agenda.”[24]
This is the kind of ‘gender-blind’and ‘rights-blind’thinking which needs to end in order for women to enjoy their economic and social rights. To tackle the problem, economic and social rights must be taken seriously as human rights, and women’s equality must occupy a central and visible space within economic decision-making and policy-making. To help further thinking on women’s economic and social rights, the next three sections address understanding women’s economic and social rights (Section 2.), women’s economic and social rights throughout the life cycle, (Section 3.) and accountability for women’s economic and social rights (Section 4.). The final section (Section 5.) lays out specific recommendation to States, United Nations Human Rights Bodies, and International and Regional Economic/Financial Actors and Agencies for the promotion, protection and advancement of women’s economic and social rights.
2.Understanding women’s economic and social rights
2.1The legal basis for women’s economic and social rights
International human rights law contains multiple provisions protecting economic and social rights, as well as women’s right to equality in the enjoyment of these rights. It is this vital intersection between substantive economic and social rights and women’s right to equality that must be examined and advanced. This Sub-Section provides an overview of the legal and other relevant standards which exist recognizing these rights.
The Universal Declaration on Human Rights[25](UDHR) guarantees the right to non-discrimination (Article 2); the right to marry and to found a family, and the equal rights of spouses, both during marriage and at its dissolution (Article 16); the right to own property alone as well as in association with others (Article 17); the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment (Article 23, §1); the right to equal pay for equal work (Article 23, §2); the right to just and favorable remuneration (Article 23, §3); the right to form and to join trade unions (Article 23, §4); the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay (Article 24); the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being oneself and one’s family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security (Article 25), the protection of motherhood and childhood (Article 25); and the right to education (Article 26). Article 28 states that everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in the Declaration can be fully realized.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women[26](CEDAW) obliges States parties to embody the principle of equality of women and men in their national legal frameworks and to “take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to modify or abolish existing laws, regulations, customs and practices which constitute discrimination against women” (Article 2). Article 3 provides that “States [p]arties shall take in all fields, in particular in the political, social, economic and cultural fields, all appropriate measures, including legislation, to ensure the full development and advancement of women, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men.”[27] Article 4 encourages States to adopt temporary special measures aimed at accelerating de facto equality between women and men.