Violent Conflict and Gender Inequality: An Overview

Abstract

Violent conflict, a pervasive feature of the recent global landscape, has lasting impacts on human capital, and these impacts are seldom gender neutral. Death and destruction alter the structure and dynamics of households, including their demographic profiles and traditional gender roles. To date, attention to the gender impacts of conflict has focused almost exclusively on sexual and genderbased violence. We show that a far wider set of gender issues must be considered to better document the human consequences of war and to design effective postconflict policies. The emerging empirical evidence is organized using a framework that identifies both the differential impacts of violent conflict on males and females (first-round impacts) and the role of gender inequality in framing adaptive responses to conflict (second-round impacts). War's mortality burden is disproportionately borne by males, whereas women and children constitute a majority of refugees and the displaced. Indirect war impacts on health are more equally distributed between the genders. Conflicts create households headed by widows who can be especially vulnerable to intergenerational poverty. Second-round impacts can provide opportunities for women in work and politics triggered by the absence of men. Households adapt to conflict with changes in marriage and fertility, migration, investments in children's health and schooling, and the distribution of labor between the genders. The impacts of conflict are heterogeneous and can either increase or decrease preexisting gender inequalities. Describing these gender differential effects is a first step toward developing evidence-based conflict prevention and postconflict policy.

Women and Peace Building: Local Perspectives on Opportunities and Barriers

“…texts. These goals are supported by a growing body of evidence showing that violent conflicts have differentiated effects on women, men, boys and girls (Buvinic et al, 2012;Justino, 2009;Justino et al, 2014). Furthermore, gender equality may be associated with a lower risk of inter-and intra-state conflicts (Caprioli, 2003(Caprioli, , 2005Regan and Paskeviciute, 2003), improved respect for human rights (Melander, 2005), the promotion of democracy (Barro, 1997), and lower corruption in society (Dollar et al, 2001;Swamy et al, 2001).…”

“…This opening of spaces for women during conflicts has resulted in a more visible presence of women in the political sphere in post-conflict countries, and wide recognition of the important role that they have to play in peacebuilding processes (Buvinic et al, 2012;Carmil and Breznitz, 1991). In some settings -often supported by international donors and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) -women have been able to use the post-conflict period to ensure increased female political representation at the national level through voter registration drives, assistance to female candidates, and awareness raising about gender issues (Bouta et al, 2005;Weil, 2004).…”

Leaders against all odds: Women victims of conflict in Colombia

“…With regard to WVCs and violence, the evidence suggests that violent conflict can trigger unexpectedly positive civic and political behaviours by women and other groups in the population who are largely excluded from participating in civic and political life during peacetime (Buvinic et al, 2013). Experiences of war violence are often highly correlated with greater levels of social capital, community engagement and peaceful political engagement (Wood, 2003).…”

The Impact of Leaving Camps on Well‐being of Internally Displaced Persons in Northern Uganda

“…It is associated with a variety of direct and indirect effects strongly affecting living conditions of households during and after conflict (Justino, 2011). The directly observable consequences can be catastrophic, the impact felt years after the end of conflict and often borne unequally across the population (Hoeffler and Reynal-Querol, 2003;Justine, 2005;Murthy and Lakshminarayana, 2006;Lai, 2007;Blattman and Miguel, 2010;Buvinic et al, 2012;León, 2012;Kecmanovic, 2012;Ali, 2013).…”