Gender Norms and Gender-Responsive Social Protection
GRASSP synthesis brief: Evidence from programme and policy research
Highlights
Gender norms shape policies and society, including the design, implementation and impacts of social protection norms on gender equality outcomes. With funding from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), UNICEF Innocenti implemented the multi-year Gender-Responsive Age-Sensitive Social Protection (GRASSP) research programme (2018–2024) to build a robust evidence base on what works, how, and why social protection can advance gender equality.
A key area of inquiry within the research programme examined the role of gender norms as a moderator of social protection programmes. This brief synthesizes evidence from 11case studies – Angola, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mali, Mexico, Uruguay and Vietnam – highlighting the role of gender norms in shaping decision at policy level, and also the delivery and impacts of social protection programmes. The case studies investigated policy reforms and diverse social protection programmes, using political economy analysis to examine policy reforms, and mixed-methods impact and process evaluations to generate programme evidence.
