What works to enhance gender equality through social protection?
What the evidence tells us
Women and girls face distinct risks and vulnerabilities which can increase their risk of poverty. Discriminatory gender norms underpin gender inequalities in access to education, health, nutrition, employment, and well-being across the life course. Evidence shows that social protection can successfully address the vulnerabilities of households to risks and stressful events and improve well-being. If gender is taken into account, social protection can potentially disrupt harmful gender norms, reduce poverty among women and girls and advance gender equality.
What does the evidence suggest?
- Cash transfer programmes and cash-plus programmes (cash transfer programmes combined with other support) empower women and girls by improving access to schooling, economic participation, the use of health care and sexual and reproductive health services and by reducing sexual violence and conflicts within the household. Cash-based programmes can also improve the agency of women by enhancing the ability of women to make decisions and control their own lives.1,2,3,4 However, in many contexts, men remain the primary decision makers for major household decisions related to finances, assets and property.1
- In some contexts, cash-based programmes could have unintended consequences on the allocation of labour within households, particularly increasing the unpaid domestic and care work burden for girls and women in line with gender norms on the division of labour, thereby worsening time poverty. Gender norms remain a powerful influence that can undermine the implementation and the impacts of social protection programmes on gender equality and therefore gender responsive and transformative social protection is needed to address them.1
- At programme level, adequate design and implementation is necessary.1,3 Gender interventions in social protection programmes are often under-resourced and lacking in intensity, frequency, duration, and coverage, which undermines the intended impacts on gender equality.1
- At policy level, the integration of gender equality objectives and strategies depends on political will and inclusion of relevant stakeholders. Civil society, grass roots, and women’s rights movements are typically excluded from policy making processes even though they can be effective in driving change.1
Recommendations for policy and practice
"Current evidence is mainly based on the short to medium term implementation and impacts of social protection programmes. For gender transformative social protection to achieve lasting change, this requires longer-term, sustained and deliberate multisectoral or integrated programmes."
"At the policy making level, there is need to move beyond regulatory and technocratic approaches to gender mainstreaming to promote a shift in ideologies and social norms, create the right incentives and accountabilities for policymakers to pursue gender objectives, and provide spaces for genuine and sustained engagement with civil society, including women and girls' organizations."
"Appropriate and adequate design and implementation is necessary for achieving the desired gender intent of gender-focused interventions in social protection programmes and for generating gender equality outcomes."
"Further research is needed to deepen our understanding of how material inequalities and gender norms interplay with the implementation of gender-focused design features in social protection programmes and ultimately influence gender equality outcomes."
Note
This article draws on the Gender-Responsive Age-Sensitive Social Protection (GRASSP) research programme and systematic reviews by Peterman et al. (2024), Perera et al. (2022) and Buller et al. (2018). GRASSP research findings are based on ten case studies. Five studies employed mixed methods randomized and quasi-experimental designs to determine impacts of social protection programmes, one study is based on a process evaluation, and five studies utilized political economy analysis. The GRASSP programme was a five-year research programme (2018–2024) led by UNICEF Innocenti and funded by the UK government and other partners.
References
1. Kuss, M. K., Subrahmanian, R., Mathers, N., Tirivayi, J. N., and Groppo V., Damoah, K. A., Van Drooghenbroeck, M., Otchere F., and Angeles Tagliaferro, G. Evidence on Policymaking, Programme Implementation and Impacts for Women and Girls. UNICEF Innocenti, Florence, 2024, https://www.unicef.org/innocenti/reports/evidence-policymaking-programme-implementation-and-impacts-women-and-girls.
2. Perera, C., Bakrania, S., Ipince, A., Nesbitt‐Ahmed, Z., Obasola, O., Richardson, D., van de Scheur, J., and Yu, R. (2022). Impact of social protection on gender equality in low‐and middle‐income countries: A systematic review of reviews. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 18(2), e1240, https://doi.org/10.1002/cl2.1240.
3. Peterman, A., Wang, J., Sonke, KK, & Steinert, J. Social Safety Nets, Women's Economic Achievements and Agency. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Center for Global Development, Washington DC, 2024, https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/social-safety-nets-womens-economic-achievements-and-agency-systematic-review-and-meta.pdf.
4. Buller, A. M., Peterman, A., Ranganathan, M., Bleile, A., Hidrobo, M., and Heise, L. (2018). A mixed-method review of cash transfers and intimate partner violence in low-and middle-income countries. The World Bank Research Observer, 33(2), 218-258, https://hdl.handle.net/10986/33274.