Building Inclusive Economies How Women S Economic Advancement Promotes Sustainable Growth

The connection between women's economic participation and prosperity is undeniable, yet national and international economic leaders continue to make and measure policy in ways that undervalue women's work. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon and Rachel B. Vogelstein recommend women's economic empowerment as a tool to accelerate growth and reduce poverty.

This book investigates the barriers to women’s economic empowerment in the Global South. Drawing on evidence from a wide range of countries, the book outlines important lessons and practical solutions for promoting gender equality. Despite global progress in closing gender gaps in education and health, women’s economic empowerment has lagged behind, with little evidence that economic growth promotes gender equality. International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) programme was set up to provide policy lessons, insights, and concrete solutions that could lead to advances in gender equality, particularly on the role of institutions and macroeconomic growth, barriers to labour market access for women, and the impact of women’s care responsibilities. This book showcases rigorous and multi-disciplinary research emerging from this ground-breaking programme, covering topics such as the school-to-work transition, child marriage, unpaid domestic work and childcare, labour market segregation, and the power of social and cultural norms that prevent women from fully participating in better paid sectors of the economy. With a range of rich case studies from Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nepal, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Uganda, this book is perfect for students, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers working on women’s economic empowerment and gender equality in the Global South.

"The economic and social imperative for women’s economic empowerment is clear. Greater gender equality boosts economic growth and leads to better development outcomes. It contributes to reducing income inequality and boosting economic diversification and, in turn, supports economic resilience. Gender equality is one of the 17 global UN Sustainable Development Goals, which provide a roadmap for ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The G7 has emphasized the need for closing the gender gap. The Taormina Leaders’ Summit in 2017 renewed the emphasis on promoting women’s empowerment, which the leaders see as a crucial contribution to promoting sustainable development. In this regard, leaders committed to mainstreaming gender equality into all their policies. This is carried forward by Canada’s G7 Presidency. With growing recognition that gender equality promotes economic stability and growth, the IMF has scaled up its work in this area and is committed to continue these efforts. Work by the IMF will focus on (i) deepening its understanding of the economic benefits of women’s empowerment, both in the labor market and through more equal opportunities for boys and girls, also against the background of persistent megatrends, including in an environment of rapid technological change; (ii) integrating the analysis into Fund policy dialogue with member countries; (iii) providing customized assistance, workshops, and peer-learning courses in areas such as gender budgeting; and (iv) expanding collaboration with other international institutions on the subject to benefit from complementary areas of expertise."

As women become more outspoken regarding their right to equal pay, it has been noted that gender equality, with women earning as much as men, would enrich the global economy. These studies have shown that equal pay, equal hours, and equal participation for women in the workforce could lead to a global wealth jump and potentially create knock-on benefits such as lower malnutrition and child mortality rates. Women Empowerment and Well-Being for Inclusive Economic Growth is a collection of innovative research that makes the case for understanding development in economic terms as well as in terms of well-being, empowerment, and participation and uncovers the role of empowering women and achieving gender equality in sustainable development. Research work and cases related to participation of a women's labor force in the economic development of the country, the place of women in society, their contribution to the social development of their country, and the problems faced by them are key features in the book. While highlighting topics including gender inequality, self-worth, and industrial policy, this book is ideally designed for economic analysts, managers, policymakers, business professionals, government officials, entrepreneurs, and business students.

Gender equality and environmental goals are mutually reinforcing, with slow progress on environmental actions affecting the achievement of gender equality, and vice versa. Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires targeted and coherent actions.

Proponents of inclusive growth advocate for equity considerations to be at the front and center of growth policy. However, their principal concern is with class and not gender equality. This publication shows that economic growth is an inherently gendered process and gender-based inequalities can in fact be barriers to shared prosperity. Gender equality will thus need to be central to any project of inclusion. The book argues that for growth to be gender-equitable and truly inclusive, the pattern of growth must create decent work and productive employment for women and men. This would require policy-makers to rethink the role of macro-level economic policies, including trade, industrial, macro-economic, finance and investment policies, and to adopt human rights as a guiding normative framework. The book highlights the importance of addressing unpaid care and domestic work and calls for a transformative approach that recognizes and values care work.

This paper considers various dimensions and sources of gender inequality and presents policies and best practices to address these. With women accounting for fifty percent of the global population, inclusive growth can only be achieved if it promotes gender equality. Despite recent progress, gender gaps remain across all stages of life, including before birth, and negatively impact health, education, and economic outcomes for women. The roadmap to gender equality has to rely on legal framework reforms, policies to promote equal access, and efforts to tackle entrenched social norms. These need to be set in the context of arising new trends such as digitalization, climate change, as well as shocks such as pandemics.