Gender-Sensitive Social Protection

Social protection is a crucial tool for adressing shocks, vulnerability, gender equality and poverty. It can be the difference between a child going to bed hungry or missing school. It can enable people to access essential health care and adapt more easily to climate related shocks. Expanding the coverage and scope of social protection programmes to ensure that they reach the most vulnerable is essential for preventing households from falling into poverty during times of distress.

Women and children are over-represented among those living in poverty across the world. For example, women between the ages of 24 and 34 are 25% more likely to live below the poverty line and female headed households are nearly 50% more likely to be suffering from extreme poverty than male headed households. COVID-19 has only futher exacerbated this trend. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5) aims to address these issues of gender inequality; ensuring equal access to resources, property ownership and financial sercvices for women, promoting empowerment and increasing resilience.

If social protection programmes are established with gender specific vulnerabilities and structural inequalities in mind, it can contribute to gender transformational change. This would involve gender specific programmes tailored towards women in their design, implementation and financing features (Camilletti et al., 2022). Addressing gender inequality through social protection has proven to be a successful way to achieve gender transformative results. Especially for improving girls’ access to education, women’s health and reduced poverty.

However, as of now, much work is to be done to achieve these desired results. In the rural communities in which they are most needed, challenges persist in making the programmes accessible to women. Women are likely to be excluded from many social protection programmes, as they often target the formal sector in which women are under-represented. This includes insurance, pensions and social legislation. Programmes that focus on redistributing assets to women, that tackle age-related and work-related vulnerabilities like childcare are very effective. Public works, unemployment insurance and tax polices are less so. Cash transfers are one of the most effective methods of providing assets to women, rather than employment schemes.

In order for social protection to be beneficial for women, access to social protection within the labour market must be extended to include the informal sector where women are more represented. Women shoulder the care of children and older relatives, often coming in the way of holding down a career, preventing income and economic independence. An important cause of this is that contributory schemes like pensions, benefit full-time, formal employment. As such, women’s benefits tend to be much lower than for men. Programmes would need more of a focus on assisting women in the household, like caring for elderly or disabled family members.

Gender sensitive social protection programmes address gender differences and inequality. Benefits must be constructed with the goal of mitigating these differences. Programmes need to be assigned in a way that accomodates different employment paths. For example, for mothers and children, univeral maternity benefits that provide income security for a sufficient period before and after childbirth is essential. This should coincide with paternity benefits to reduce the household labour burden for women and encourage shared responsibility of parenthood. Adjustments in pensions and the required number of contributory years can also help compensate for loss of income during years spent caring for elderly family members. Essential health care service packages must also be tailored towards women’s needs, including maternal health and childbirth, sexual health, cervical checks and assistance in cases of sexual violence.

For social protection to reach all women, schemes must be accessible in rural and urban areas. The best way to achieve this is to combine programmes with national policies that support gender equality. Electronic delivery methods are also an effective way to reach remote areas. However, a disparity remains with women’s access to technology and banking and as such, alternatives are needed. Social protection itself will not solve all gender equality issues but if done right, it has the potential to greatly reduce the gender gap.