Category: Gender

VIDEO: How Can Companies Ensure Gender Equality Through Value Chains?

Professor Stephanie Barrientos teaches in the Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester. She was previously a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex (2000-7). She has undertaken research in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the UK and she has published widely on gender, global production, employment, decent work, trade […]

Supporting Women’s Wellbeing through Flexible, Digital Earning Opportunities

The WTO has recently predicted that the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic will be disproportionately felt by women, with a ‘pink collar recession’ threatening to roll back the gender equality gains of recent decades.  In the UK, there are indications that women are bearing the brunt of redundancies, mothers are more likely than fathers […]

Going above and beyond to support women entrepreneurs

At home, women are taking on much greater caring responsibilities for children who have been unable to attend school, while also having to step into an educational role. At work, women are more likely to be in the sort of low-paid or informal work – hospitality, healthcare, cleaning – which either exposes them to the […]

Addressing gender-based violence and harassment

Gender-based violence and harassment is a widespread and serious global issue that affects individuals in the workplace, their communities, and homes. Gender-based violence and harassment is an umbrella term and can take many forms including physical, psychological, sexual or economic harm – and is characterised by being directed at a person because of their sex […]

Rebuild Better. Rebuild Now

Hand in Hand, an NGO specialising in women’s economic empowerment, recently polled 800 our members in Kenya to find out how Covid-19 and subsequent lockdown measures were impacting their businesses. The results, if not entirely surprising, still managed to shock. Incomes had dropped by an average of 67 percent. Savings were down 69 percent and on course […]

How companies can take action to address white privilege 

Like many, I have been reflecting on the injustice of racism since the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests and considering how my own actions might be perpetuating the interests of dominant white power structures within business. Over the last year the majority of my time was spent producing two Business […]

To find out what ‘better’ looks like we must listen to those most affected

Plan International UK is responding to the global coronavirus crisis in over 50 countries; from delivering hygiene kits and life-saving public health information to vulnerable families and communities around the world, to ensuring children can continue their education when schools are closed. While the coronavirus crisis is having a devastating impact right across the world, […]

Masterclass Series: Gender Equality for Business

When it comes to the workplace progress in reaching parity has stalled. The World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Gap report found that at the current rate, it will take another 100 years to close the overall gender gap and 257 years to bring about parity in the workplace; in the 2019 report this number […]

Finding Innovative Ideas and Tangible Solutions for Financing Young Entrepreneurs

This is the first in a three part series, published in the lead up to Standard Chartered’s Futuremakers Forum online events 2020. To join the conversation exploring innovative ideas and tangible solutions for financing young entrepreneurs – the live event will take place on 30 July 2020. Please click here to register. Globally, more than […]

One Key to Getting People Back to Work? Childcare

Instead of finding support, many people have discovered deep fault lines in access to social services, including childcare. The childcare system has been deeply affected, with childcare centers around the world closed to protect children and workers. A survey in South Africa reveals that 68 percent of childcare center owners are concerned that they will […]

Industries Post-COVID-19: A Gender-Responsive Approach to Global Economic Recovery

What most crises have in common is that they hit the most vulnerable and marginalized populations—among which women are disproportionally represented—the hardest. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women, especially those facing multiple forms of discrimination related to poverty, race or disability, is increasingly being documented. As reported in the UN Secretary General’s “Policy […]

COVID-19 Could Drive Millions of Women into Poverty, When They are Agents of Recovery

Women working in garment factories have already lost their jobs, often their households’ only income, while the pandemic is exacerbating other families’ food insecurity. For those living in areas of conflict, COVID-19 is exacerbating an already terrible situation. Like an earthquake exposing a fault line, as the pandemic plays out it is exposing deep structural inequalities. […]

Three Promises Lidl Has Made to Protect its Food Workers

But there is another group of frontline food workers doing the same, hidden from view, those who produce the products we are all trying to buy, such as tea, coffee, prawns, fruit and vegetables. Even before Coronavirus, Oxfam research highlighted workers’ vulnerability, earning low wages on insecure contracts, often with poor sick pay and hygiene arrangements. In 2018, we launched the Behind the […]

COVID-19 and the Garment Industry: Protect Workers, Transform the Industry

What is the Impact of COVID-19 on Women in the Garment Industry? Brands and retailers are cancelling orders from their supplier factories and many governments are imposing restrictions on travel and gatherings. As a result, a large number of garment factories are suspending production and either firing or temporarily suspending their workers. Over 1 million […]

Coronavirus measures will hit women harder than men, charities warn

Although death rates appear to be slightly higher among men, a study by aid organisations CARE International and International Rescue Committee (IRC) found women were more at risk of suffering domestic violence while quarantined. They were also more likely than men to take on the burden of caring for family members who were sick, and […]

COVID-19 Requires Gender-Equal Responses to Save Economies

Why are women so at risk?   Firstly, women are more likely to lose their jobs than men. In many countries, women’s participation in the labour market is often in the form of temporary employment. Across the world, women represent less than 40% of total employment but make up 57% of those working on a part-time […]