2010 Updates: Impacts Of The Crisis On Women’s Rights: Sub Regional Perspectives

Brief 2: Impact of the Global Crisis on Women in Developing Asia
By Jayati Ghosh

Policy-makers in Asia tend to see the global recession as a mere blip in a
process of continuing and dynamic economic growth. However, as this brief
explores, the crisis has had a significant impact on women in many Asian
countries in terms of their varied but overlapping roles as paid workers,
self-employed workers, unpaid workers, members of households, and citizens
with rights and individuals with needs, wants and aspirations.

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Brief 3: Women of the Pacific and the Global Economic Crisis
By Karanina Sumeo (coming soon)

Brief 4: Impacts of the Global Economic and Financial Crisis on Women in Central Asia
By Nurgul Djanaeva
The negative trends of the global economic and financial crisis remained in Central Asia throughout 2010. The impacts of the crisis on women including rising unemployment, migration, wage discrimination or lack of basic social protection in the female-intensive garment industry have not been addressed by governments in the region.

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Brief 5: The Impact of the Deepening Economic Crisis on Women and Gender Equality in Western Europe
By Wendy Harcourt and Lois Woestman 

This updated edition expands the original analysis through an in-depth case study on Greece and a series of interviews with women rights activists from around Europe The paper also discusses further trends with a feminist perspective such as the growing divide between North and South Europe, the lack of trust in the EU, increased racism and difficulties for migrants around fears of social unrest.

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Brief 6: The Impact of the Crisis on Women in Eastern Europe
By Eva Charkiewicz

In all countries in Eastern Europe, poverty is highest among children and youth. Young women and men are the hardest hit due to the privatization of education, housing, and flexibilization of labor markets. A new category of the working poor has emerged: those barely surviving and with no chance of accumulating savings for future pensions.

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Brief 7: The Impact of the Crisis on Women
The Global Economic Crisis and Gender Relations: The Greek Case
By Lois Woestman

The Greek case shows that the economic crises and its attendant “recovery programmes” within the eurozone are hitting both men and women hard, but in gender differentiated ways. They are also causing crises in the largely invisible unpaid care economy, where women bear the brunt of the unpaid work burden. 

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Brief 8: The Impact of the Crisis on Women
United States: The Continued Need for Social Sector Stimulus
By Rania Antonopoulos and Taun Toay 

While the recent crisis in the United States has been characterized as a “man-cession,” such analysis discounts the important impacts on women and families. The effect on these groups is particularly crucial given the “invisible” space that a large degree of female labor occupies. Government responses thus far have largely favored male job retention and creation. In light of these considerations, the authors propose direct job creation and female-targeted transfer payments to help ease the impact of these crises on groups that are falling largely outside of the response efforts to date.

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Brief 9: The Impact of the Deepening Economic Crisis on Women in Eastern and Southern Africa
By Zo Randriamaro

The potential impact on women in the context of the economic recovery, hinges on the policy space and commitment of African governments to address the structural weaknesses of their economies, which existed even before the global systemic crisis and hindered the potential of growth to create more equitable societies. Most importantly, the impact will also depend on the governments’ political will to decisively address the structural gender inequalities that continue to exclude too many women from the benefits of growth.

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Brief 10: The Impact of the Global Economic Crisis on Women and Women’s Human Rights Across Regions
By Nerea Craviotto

In order to develop responses to the crisis that are grounded in the lived experiences of women affected by the crisis across the globe, this cross-regional update highlights the impacts across and within regions. Almost 3 years into the current systemic crisis, the disproportionate impact on particular women, the intense challenges women face in maintaining livelihoods and the erosion of women’s human rights continue.

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Brief 11: Women’s economic empowerment in the Arab region 

By Kinda Mohamadieh

The global crises has contributed to exacerbating an already deteriorated context in the Arab region which is marked by political repression, lack of democracy, economic and social marginalization, and human rights violations. Within this context, this brief highlights the gender gaps and employment disparities in Arab countries, and it examines how chronic development challenges and the global crises triggered people’s revolutions with women at the centre of the revolutions and uprisings witnessed in the Arab region since the end of 2010.

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