Peer Learning Countries could learn much from one another about legislated reforms to promote womens economic empowerment. Including gender units in various ministries, which have economic/employment mandates, could also be a good way to advance womens economic empowerment. Since men are employed at almost the same rates in all countries, expanding the labor force can be achieved mostly through engaging women in employment outside of the home. Not only is it not possible to achieve gender equality without education, expanding educational opportunities for everyone could help boost productivity, thereby also lessening economic vulnerability for the poorest families.
Given womens widespread and growing involvement in income-generating activities, educating girls and women is especially critical, particularly when seeking to reversal gender patterns of discrimination. It is concluded that one of the best possible ways of increasing young womens ability to claim their sexual and reproductive rights is through increasing access to education, especially secondary education. HIV and Property Rights Among salient policy issues to be addressed as part of the national AIDS gender-based response, the protection of womens property and inheritance rights is crucial to reduce vulnerability of women and girls to the risks of HIV infection.
The SDGs set a very high standard for gender equality and womens empowerment, and SDG5 is committed to the goal of attaining full gender equality and empowering all women and girls. The requirement that countries measure progress relative to the SDGs has provided strong incentives for improving data collection and analyses of gender equality and womens empowerment. We must ensure we tackle all issues holding back women, including societal norms like childcare and eldercare, as well as other challenges including gender-based violence (GBV).
The growing amount of unpaid carework risks further confining women into womens reproductive roles and entrenching current gender norms across the Middle East and North Africa. Achieving gender equity in earnings across the life course of current generations of MENA working-age women can increase regional prosperity by up to $3.1 trillion3 according to World Bank estimates (World Bank, 2018 ). Legal changes like this could go a long way toward helping women contribute positively to societys wellbeing.
Including provisions on equality in laws governing the realisation of womens rights, including property rights, marriage laws, and so on, so these different laws work together in the service of women. In other words, during most Western laws that were introduced in the legal codes in the Middle East, those Western laws were discriminatory towards women. While women are constitutionally equal with men in the West, the majority of Western laws contained language that was gendered, resulting in an even more unequal treatment between men and women in the West.
Laws in the Middle Eastern countries prevented women from owning assets, working in some sectors considered unsafe for women, or even traveling without permission of male relatives. For example, women in Egypt face about 20 legally enforced gender/sex-specific barriers in the economic realm, more than they do to men.
In that respect, a newly created gender policy council headed by the Biden-Harris administration could be instrumental in working with its allies to enact comprehensive policy reforms that will include women, opening up avenues for civil society, and reforming restrictive laws that discriminate against women.