Amid a worldwide backlash against women’s rights, and after its own aid cuts that further threaten those rights, it has never been more urgent for the UK government to speak up loudly for global gender equality, says the Gender and Development Network.
No one should be left behind in the shift to a greener future
After decades of delay, the move from burning fossil fuels to renewables is firmly underway – but the fairness of this unfolding transition is not inevitable. In fact, there is a real danger the world will simply swap one exploitative and unjust system for another. Natalie Shortall introduces a new Oxfam paper that calls on the UK to get wholeheartedly behind a “just transition”.
From Personal to Powerful: in the face of growing attacks on rights, states must hold the line for gender justice
Three decades after the landmark Beijing declaration to advance women’s rights, right-wing, religious, and conservative actors are reversing and obstructing hard-won progress. This International Women’s Day, our new Oxfam campaign calls on governments across the globe to reassert their commitment to gender justice, bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights, say Lata Narayanaswamy and Amina Hersi.
Care work is real work: how can we make people and policy makers see that?
Daniela Oliveira pays tribute to the caring work of her own mother, “the minister for home affairs”, and sets out three ways to shift how the public and governments recognise and value the labour of care.
Want an economy that works for women? Keep care services public – and fund them properly
Deep cuts to public spending or abandoning provision to profit-making providers will not deliver the decent services millions of women so urgently need, say Myrah Nerine and Rachel Noble.
It’s time to put care at the centre of our economics courses
The UK government’s Francis Review of the English school curriculum is an unprecedented chance to shift the national and global conversation on economics education: let’s not miss it, say Alex Bush and Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann. They explain why we need to change an economics curriculum which perpetuates narratives that are bad for people and planet and erase care work.
When conflict destroys services, who fills the gaps in care? We need to make sure it’s not always women
In Gaza and Lebanon, thousands of women are now first responders when it comes to feeding, caring and comforting, all while dealing with their own trauma from deaths, injury, starvation and displacement. Yet too often the way humanitarian agencies operate actually adds to their workload, says Hadeel Rizq-Qazzaz.
Why are care workers missing from the conversation about the gig economy in the UK?
Debates about workers on digital platforms too often focus on male-dominated sectors such as deliveries and ride-hailing. In a blog for the International Day Of Care, Veronica Deutsch explains how care workers, overwhelmingly women, are now central to the precarious UK gig economy – and sets out what campaigners, researchers, employers and policy makers can do to support them.
Data and debt: The twin obstacles to justice on care and domestic work
The recent historic International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) conference in Rome highlighted two big challenges standing in the way of the UN’s ambitions to address unpaid care and domestic work so that it is valued and shared equitably. Chama Mwandalesa – who joined the annual gathering in Rome – explains.
Beyond GDP
What are the limitations of using GDP as a measure, and what alternatives could we use instead? Ridhi Kalaria shares her experience during the Women’s Budget Group’s Beyond GDP workshop in June and why we must look beyond GDP.