WUNRN
HOW TO REVERSE THE
"FEMINISATION OF POVERTY"
Mathilde Bagneres Interviews Economist STEPHANIE SEGUINO
United
Nations, Feb 22, 2012 (IPS) - The phrase "financing for gender
equality" may sound dry, but it lies at the heart of some of the most
intractable problems faced by women around the world today – and whether the
political will exists to allocate real resources to solving them or simply pay
lip service.
Beginning next week, from Feb. 27 to Mar. 9, ministers and civil society
delegates will meet at the United Nations for the 56th session of the Commission
on the Status of Women (CSW).
This year's meeting is especially critical because it will assess how
governments have made good on promises at the 52nd session in 2008 to boost
financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women.
The topic covers everything from broader macroeconomic policies, to public
finance and gender responsive budgeting, the mobilisation of international
resources and aid, and finding new and innovative sources of funding.
Stephanie Seguino, an economics professor at the University of Vermont in the
United States, will take part in the CSW discussions as a member of a panel on
"national experiences in implementing the agreed conclusions of CSW
2008".
IPS Correspondent Mathilde Bagneres talked with Seguino about how women are
particularly affected by the current economic crisis, and the role of
government in crafting policies that promote not only women's equality but
sustainable development for society as a whole. Excerpts from the interview
follow.
Q: Low wages and underemployment of women have been a persistent
problem around the world, long before the latest financial crisis. How can
financing for gender equality address these issues?
A: Some of the problems of women’s lower wages and underemployment can be
addressed through gender-aware targeting of public expenditures as well as
anti-discrimination policies. Clearly, policies to promote girls’ education,
including publicly funded education, are key.
However, more than that, policies to reduce women’s care burden and policies to
promote men’s participation in unpaid caring labour - such as paternity leave -
free up women’s time to engage in paid work.
Also, public investment in infrastructure that improves women’s access to
health care - rural health clinics, skilled health personnel - and reduces the
time they spend fetching water and fuel, or moving goods to market helps them
engage in productive activities.
Training programmes that target women, especially for non-traditional
"male" jobs, are important. In agricultural economies, governments
can offer loan guarantees where women lack title to land in order to leverage
their access to credit.
(But) even these steps will be insufficient to undermine pay inequality.
Governments need to assertively develop and enforce anti- discrimination
legislation, AND affirmative action programmes. Governments can serve as role
models by ensuring that some minimum level of leadership positions is filled by
women – 30 percent or more.
Q: The 2008 CSW Declaration expressed concern about "the growing
feminisation of poverty". Is this a trend that is likely to continue in
the near future?
A: The forces of globalisation continue to push down the wages of workers, and
result in a squeeze on public sector budgets (because of the declining
corporate tax burden and reductions in tariff revenues).
As a result, women are likely to fare poorly, especially in the context of high
unemployment. This is because men tend to be seen as more deserving of jobs
when jobs are scarce.
Until we resolve these negative macroeconomic pressures that result in slow
growth, job shortages, and growing inequality, it will be difficult to resolve
the problem of women’s poverty and that of the children they care for.
Q: You have written that "This crisis provides the opportunity to
rethink the role of government in the economy". Can you briefly elaborate
on that idea?
A: This crisis has its roots in the global deregulation of economies, leading
to market failures, the growth of inequality, along with increased economic
insecurity.
Firms have pursued profits often at the expense of broadly shared well-being.
This is not to condemn corporations for their behaviour. Firms seek to maximise
their profits in the context of societal rules that regulate their actions.
This poses two challenges for governments. First, they must identify and
enforce a set of rules and regulations that are sufficiently flexible to permit
firms to innovate while also requiring firms to align their profit motives with
social well-being. To give an example, firms try to reduce their costs to raise
profits.
They can do this by lowering wages or by innovating and thus raising their
productivity. Their choice about which path to cost reduction to take will
depend on the set of incentives that governments set.
If a government sets and enforces a minimum wage, firms will be constrained to
innovate as a way to compete, which is a good thing for the firm, workers, and
society as a whole.
Second, governments have an important role to play in investing in key areas to
"crowd in" private investment. For example, investment in
infrastructure and education is good for business because it reduces their costs.
It is also good for citizens as a whole. The challenge is to carefully target
those expenditures so that they do succeed in stimulating business investment
that leads to higher incomes.
A related challenge is to identify gender-enabling investments. As I noted
above, some public spending that had previously been thought of as social
welfare is in reality social infrastructure investment - e.g., education,
health, and conditional cash transfer programmes.
They are investments because they improve the productive capacity of the
economy, yielding a stream of benefits into the future, which can be used to
pay down the debt incurred to finance these expenditures.
The concept of social infrastructure is not well developed. It is an important
one, and is an important avenue for promoting gender equality in ways that are
financially sustainable.