Expanding Social Protection in Developing Countries: A Gender Perspective

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Rania Antonopoulos Levy Economics Institute of Bard College March 2013* This paper was prepared as background for a policy brief commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme, and I remain grateful for the opportunity. I also thank my colleague Kim Kijong for his feedback and data support.The Levy Economics Institute Working Paper Collection presents research in progress by Levy Institute scholars and conference participants. The purpose of the series is to disseminate ideas to and elicit comments from academics and professionals.Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, founded in 1986, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, independently funded research organization devoted to public service. Through scholarship and economic research it generates viable, effective public policy responses to important economic problems that profoundly affect the quality of life in the United States and abroad. ABSTRACTThis paper discusses social protection initiatives in the context of developing countries and explores the opportunities they present for promoting a gender-equality agenda and women's empowerment. The paper begins with a brief introduction on the emergence of social protection (SP) and how it is linked to economic and social policy. Next, it reviews the context, concepts, and definitions relevant to SP policies and identifies gender-specific social and economic risks and corresponding SP instruments, drawing on country-level experiences. The thrust of the paper is to explore how SP instruments can help or hinder the process of altering rigid gendered roles, and offers a critical evaluation of SP interventions from the standpoint of women's inclusion in economic life. Conditional cash transfers and employment guarantee programs are discussed in detail. An extensive annotated bibliography accompanies this paper as a resource for researchers and practitioners.

Measuring Sufficiency of Social Insurance in Maintaining Quality of Life of Civil Pensioners in Pakistan

“…Pakistan, being one of the developing countries which still did not have offered universal social protection to all of its non-earning citizens. Social insurance benefits are contributory, so during service employees contribute a defined proportion of their income to state as their part; in return they are paid social insurance when they are unemployed on temporary or permanent basis (Antonopoulos, 2013). Based on this description, first ever social security programme was launched for government servants in early 1950s, soon after existence of Pakistan.…”

Evaluation of MGNREGA: data envelopment analysis approach

“…MGNREGA has seen coverage increase from 200 districts to the entire country's 644 districts, yet implementation challenges remain. Studies have focused heavily on its effect on beneficiary incomes (Ravallion, 2008;Sharma, 2013), migration and wages (Mukherjee and Sinha, 2011;Gulati et al, 2014), gender equality (Antonopoulos, 2007(Antonopoulos, , 2013, environmental convergence (Satish et al, 2013), leakages of the scheme and corruption (Anderson et al, 2013), and targeting and capturing (Imai, 2007) among other issues. The role of proper planning in ensuring the success of MGNREGA is a common theme in many studies (Hirway, 2004;Chakraborty, 2007;Raabe et al, 2010).…”

Evaluating CCTs from a Gender Perspective: The Impact of Chile Solidario on Women's Employment Prospect

“…First, it represents a new generation of CCT inspired by the human capability approach (Barrientos & Hulme, ; Barrientos, ). Second, it does not pursue children's well‐being exclusively but addresses gender‐specific concerns and family dynamics with some empowering components, such as promoting economic engagement for mothers and their daughters (Tabbush, ; Antonopoulos, ). Third, the programme defines a set of requirements for each family in six areas representing the multidimensional aspects of deprivation: identification/legal documentation, health, education, family dynamics, housing, and employment and income (Bastagli, ; Galasso, ).…”

“…These studies, however, did not address the issue of gender and thus do not provide straightforward effects related to women entering the labour market (Antonopoulos, ). As CS programme was designed as a means of integral support for all family members living in extreme poverty, this study further investigates the impact on women's employment choices and opportunities to provide a gender perspective as a complement to previous evaluations.…”