Having lived in many countries throughout the former Soviet Union over the last nine years, I am familiar with International Women’s Day as a holiday. In Turkey, however, Women’s Day remains a work day.
And quite appropriately so, it seems to me.
In the policy discussions related to hunger, malnutrition, poverty and wellbeing, calorie intake is often the focus. Increasingly, however, micronutrient malnutrition appears to be a critical problem in many developing countries. Women and children are most vulnerable to micronutrient malnutrition due to their elevated micronutrient requirements for reproduction and growth. According to some estimates, nearly three billion people (including 56% of the pregnant and 44% of the nonpregnant women) suffer from iron deficiency anemia (IDA), and one-third of the world's population suffer from zinc deficiency. Twenty percent of the maternal deaths in Africa and Asia are due to IDA. One in every three preschool-aged children in the developing countries is malnourished. Undernutrition, coupled with infectious diseases, accounts for an estimated 3.5 million deaths annually. At levels of malnutrition found in South Asia, approximately 5% of GNP is lost each year due to debilitating effects of iron, vitamin A, and iodine deficiencies alone.
By Mirjana Popovic and Vesna Kostic
Mar. 8: Working Women’s Day or Jobless Women’s Day in Serbia?
By Mirjana Popovic, Online Communications Producer
In the former Yugoslavia, where I was born, International Women’s Day used to celebrate respect and appreciation for women in society: mothers, wives, female colleagues – in this order.
What is it like in today’s Serbia? The glory of the holiday has faded and new challenges have arisen.
Emerging Europe and Central Asia (ECA) is an interesting region because what you expect is not always what exists. Since this is written in honor of International Women's Day, discussing women’s labor market participation seems appropriate. The standard indicator used for this is the “female labor force participation” (LFP) rate, which is the proportion of all women between 15-64 years who either work or are looking for work.
Since much of the region has a common socialist legacy, you would expect to see similar labor market behavior among women. However, the proportion of women who work ranges from a low of 42 percent in Bosnia and Herzegovina to 74 percent of adult women in Kazakhstan. And it wasn’t 20 years of social and economic transition that led to this divergence. Even in 1990, the range was about the same. The exception was Moldova which saw a 26 percentage point decline.
“So how are you enjoying living in paradise?” Michael Geerts, the former German ambassador to Kenya asked me the other day. He was posted in Nairobi during the difficult years in the end of the 1990s, and continues to stay in touch with a country he loves dearly. Many colleagues, who once worked in Kenya have bought houses in Nairobi, and plan to retire in the “city under the sun”. But not everybody shares their passion and faith in the country’s future. There are many pessimists who feel that the country is moving in the wrong direction. Kenya, they say, will never rid itself from grand corruption, and crime such as drug trafficking will continue to flourish.
Are they seeing the same country? Maybe both perspectives are right, because Kenya is a country of extremes.
The surest way to empower women, close the gender gap, and ensure women’s participation in the development of their economy is through enabling equal job opportunities and employment for women. Recent efforts such as the Women, Business and the Law (WBL) project show that labor laws do vary between men and women. As we will see in three studies below, the law has an incredibly significant role in understanding female employment.
Eliminating gender disparity in laws leads to higher levels of female employment
The first study finds that gender disparity in the laws favoring males over females tends to lower the employment level of females relative to males, a result driven by employment in small and medium firms. The study uses a broad measure of gender discrimination in laws across 66 developing countries using the World Bank Group projects: WBL data and the Enterprise Surveys data to measure female employment in the private sector.
Brazil’s success in reducing poverty and income inequality has been widely reported in recent years.
Today I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about a new initiative that the Africa Region and the Research Group at the World Bank are launching today. The idea here is that we don't know enough about how to effectively address the underlying causes of gender inequality. Let me start by explaining what I mean by underlying causes. Take the case of female farmers. There is a lot of literature out there which shows that women have lower agricultural yields than men. And some of it shows that this is because women have lo
A commitment to gender equality in economic outcomes, as in other areas of social development and human rights, has emphasized women's empowerment. There is evidence that expanding woman's opportunities - particularly in the areas of health, education, earnings, civic rights, and political participation - decreases gender inequality and accelerates development. However, despite important advances towards equality, gender differences in many socioeconomic outcomes still persist. In light of this, policy makers and social scientists have shifted attention to the role of men in reducing gender disparities.
International Women's Day celebrates women's economic, political, and social achievements. On March 8, 2013, women all around the world will be recognized for the work they do as businesswomen, mothers, caretakers, and community organizers.
These women in Senegal have a reason to celebrate—they've become more active in their communities, they're starting new businesses, and they're generating income for their families. New energy projects in Senegal are now being designed to include women in decision-making processes and leadership roles.
On March 5, just before International Women’s Day, we mark the launch of On Norms and Agency: Conversations about Gender Equality with Women and Men in 20 Countries. This book is the result of an important partnership between the World Bank and the Rockefeller Foundation, and of vital qualitative work that accompanied the 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development.
Those whose voices we hear through this report—both men and women—emphasize a central point again and again: that the ability to make effective choices and exercise control over one’s life is a critical dimension of well-being.
At the World Bank, we see this book launch as an important foundation for new directions.
As part of World Bank South Asia's "What Will It Take to End Gender-Based Violence" campaign, we invited Prabu Deepan to blog about his ideas as the co-founder of the Stitch Movement in Sri Lanka.
Join Deepan for a live chat on Tuesday, March 5 at 4:00 p.m. Sri Lanka time. Location: facebook.com/worldbanksrilanka.
Gender norms and stereotypes not only affect women, they have an impact on men too. As a child whose father lost his job, I had to quit school and pick up the responsibilities of a man, to support my family financially. It has been more than 13 years and I have never stopped working; this is stressful. Studies show that men’s stress and childhood trauma increase the probability of them perpetrating violence against their partners, in comparison with a man who hasn’t had a stressful life or a traumatic childhood.
Of course, I don’t beat women, harass them, or even tease them because of my difficult upbringing. I guess most of you share the same sentiment. If I’m not someone who perpetuates violence against women and girls, then why is it my problem, right? I’m a good guy, I respect women, I treat them equally and definitely have never harmed them physically, so why worry about all of this?
One in every three women in the world will be physically or sexually abused at some point in her life. This could include the woman sitting next to you on the bus, your little niece playing in the garden, or even a friend you have known all your life.
For years, Rumana Manzur, assistant professor at Dhaka University, had been silent about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband. But on June 5, 2011, Manzur was brutally attacked at home. Her husband beat her mercilessly, tried to gouge out her eyes, and bit off part of her nose in a fit of rage. Their 5-year-old daughter was in the room and witnessed this inhuman act. Manzur is now blind, her daughter traumatized for life.
Without a doubt my most vivid memories from my work on the new gender report On Norms and Agency: Conversations about Gender Equality with Women and Men in 20 Countries were my journeys to Peru and Liberia to pilot questions for focus groups. We conducted pilots in rural and urban areas, but as terribly different as these settings were, the level of similarities that emerged surprised me.
Namely, I imagined that traditional gender norms would be much less apparent in modern and rapidly urbanizing Lima when in fact, it was not the case. Young women in Lima described their day as getting up before sunrise in order to get a hot breakfast on the table, and then juggling a flurry of activities - including part-time work as supermarket cashiers and bank tellers. The descriptions were very similar to those we heard from women in other countries.
It was startling that gender norms in a modern city were not much different from norms in a rural community of a low-income country. Just like women from poorer and more traditional places, women in Lima helped their husbands make ends meet on top of long hours of household work. Just like in less developed communities, teenage pregnancies for girls as young as 12 and 13 were cited as a problem of deep concern. All of this in a place where girls went to high school and college, and had access to a modern family planning clinic right in their neighborhood.
With International Women's Day just around the corner, World Bank Live will host an interactive chat on gender and empowerment on March 6 at 11 a.m. EST (16:00 GMT).
A specialist panel — including World Bank Vice President of Sustainable Development Rachel Kyte, World Bank Director of Gender and Development Jeni Klugman, gender experts, and field researchers from around the world — will discuss how women and men overcome the challenges posed by gender norms.
