'Trade liberalisation - the lowering of restrictions on goods for import and export - is increasingly being taken up across the world because of its association with high economic growth. With a specific focus on Africa, this paper notes that, within the context of trade liberalisation, women can be both winners and losers. They may benefit - for example through greater access to paid employment opportunities in manufacturing of garments and other goods. Yet they are not able to seize the opport more...

Maria S. Floro and Mieke Meurs argue that the changes in labor markets and labor relations, and the reduction of spending for social protection has worsened women’s access to decent work. Accordingly, women shoulder the double burden of paid and reproductive work - a drawback that could be solved by social policy that enables men and women to balance both their paid and reproductive work responsibilities.

DoG Occasional Paper No. 43, FES Berlin, June 2009

'Oxfam’s research suggests that as supply chains are squeezed by falling global demand, women in export manufacturing, garments and services are often first to be laid off, with employers leaving pay outstanding and evading legal obligations to give notice and pay compensation, with governments often turning a blind eye.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) predicts that the global economic crisis will plunge a further 22 million women into unemployment, make female unemployment high more...

Asia accounts for by far the biggest share of the world’s forced labourers. Many are migrants, either from elsewhere in Asia or their home country. Research has also shown the existence of forced labour in sectors that had escaped previous attention, including Thailand’s shrimp, fishing and seafood processing industries and shrimp production in Bangladesh.

Bonded labour exists in a range of sectors, including both those facing extreme competitive pressures, such as handloom weaving and ri more...

'Russia’s economic and social transformation has not had the anticipated effects on women and men. At the beginning of the reform era, most commentators on gender in Russia predicted that women would be the primary casualties of reform. It was anticipated that unemployment would have a ‘female face’, that the wage gap would grow and that female labour participation was likely to fall. These predictions proved inaccurate. Despite sweeping economic change, continuity in gender trends in empl more...

'In Uzbekistan, as in many other CIS countries, the growing rural population has tried to compensate for poor access to non-agricultural employment by seeking temporary, informal employment in cities.'

Article from Development and Transition, a joint publication of UNDP and the London School of Economics. The issue is devoted to ‘Gender In Transition ’, to understand how transition and development affect women and men differently.

'Discrimination in the workplace remains an important factor in explaining women’s inferior social status. With Poland’s May 2004 accession to the European Union, amendments to the country’s labour code both defined and prohibited direct and indirect discrimination in employment.'

Article from Development and Transition, a joint publication of UNDP and the London School of Economics. The issue is devoted to ‘Gender In Transition’, to understand how transition and development affect more...

'Both women and men have been affected by Poland’s transformation, but women have been disproportionately affected by job loss, unemployment, impoverishment, and gender discrimination. Emigration has enabled women to find new work opportunities across Europe as cleaners, nannies, care workers, and nurses. While this is a ‘success story’ of sorts, the exodus of young women is depleting Poland of its mothers and daughters and large swathes of human and social capital.'

Article from Devel more...

'The wars and social upheavals of the post-independence period in the South Caucasus and Central Asia have affected women and men differently. This makes a gender perspective on issues of peace and conflict relevant. Women often carry the bulk of the social hardship created by conflicts.'

Article from Development and Transition, a joint publication of UNDP and the London School of Economics. The issue is devoted to ‘Gender In Transition’, to understand how transition and development affe more...

'Reverse gender policies, setbacks in the feminist movement, low representation of women in leadership positions, the withdrawal of state support for childcare and parental leave: these alarming factors suggest that in transition countries women have experienced dramatic declines in their labour-market position. On the other hand, a good number of scholars argue that, despite these negative changes, women have managed to maintain their relative position vis-à-vis men, and that transition has ev more...