Accelerating Gender Equality Through Social Protection

Introduction

Social protection is vital for poverty reduction, addressing vulnerability, and reducing inequality. It is increasingly recognized for its role in advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. Social protection policies, programs, and interventions safeguard individuals against vulnerabilities throughout their lives, build human capital for those in poverty, and enhance access to economic opportunities. These initiatives also protect against collective risks like climate shocks and pandemics. Beyond benefiting individuals and households, social protection contributes to poverty reduction, economic growth, and greater equality at the community and national levels.

Addressing gender inequalities remains a formidable challenge, especially in low- and middle-income countries and fragile, conflict, and violence (FCV) settings. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated gender inequality, eroding past gains in many countries. Policies and programs are needed to tackle these structural gender inequalities.

Key Insights

Boosting women and girls’ human capital and addressing GBV through social assistance

A vast body of evidence from impact evaluations demonstrates that social assistance is an effective tool to reduce gender inequalities in human capital, boost women’s economic empowerment and access to financial and other services, and reduce GBV. Today, most World Bank-financed social assistance benefits are paid directly to women on behalf of their households. Evidence suggests that paying cash transfers to women leads to greater empowerment. Social assistance enhances food consumption and promotes access to health, nutrition, and education services, and/or improves service uptake.

Expanding and enabling economic opportunities for women

Economic inclusion programs boost the income and assets of the world’s poorest individuals and households through coordinated interventions, like cash or in-kind transfers, skills training and coaching, access to finance, and links to market support. Women’s economic empowerment is a key driver of economic inclusion programs, with nearly 90 percent of programs surveyed in the report having a gender focus.

Building resilience through adaptive social protection in the face of crises and the impact of FCV

The World Bank estimates that by 2030, up to two-thirds of the world’s poorest people could live in FCV settings and that, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, 20 million more people are living in extreme poverty in FCV countries. Global crises like COVID-19, climate change, and conflicts have resulted in setbacks to gender equality, stalling and even reversing decades of hard-won progress. In FCV settings, gender inequalities are exacerbated by the breakdown of both formal and informal institutions. Adaptive social protection (ASP) is a vital tool for building the resilience of poor and vulnerable people to a range of large covariate shocks.

Key Statistics & Data

• Nearly half of the global population lacks adequate social protection coverage.
• In 2023, an estimated 10 percent of women were living in extreme poverty.
• Women worldwide have just three-quarters of the legal rights of men, over 1 billion women lack access to finance, and women are 21 percent less likely than men to use the internet.
• Across European OECD countries, pension payments to women age 65 and over were, on average, 25 percent lower than for men.
• The Grenada Second Recovery and Resilience Programmatic Development Policy Credit (P178930) supports the establishment of an unemployment insurance system that is expected to benefit women given their vulnerability to job losses.

Methodology

This note presents evidence and operational experience on how social protection can boost gender equality and women and girls’ empowerment outcomes and discusses challenges that need to be addressed to maximize the impact of social protection interventions at scale. Recommendations are offered on ways to further amplify gender equality outcomes. It utilizes various methodologies including impact evaluations, systematic reviews, and analysis of programs and interventions to inform its conclusions.

Applications

This note’s insights are highly applicable to digital development and DPGs/DPI:

• Digital Identity and Registries: Establishing robust and inclusive digital identification systems is critical to ensuring that women and marginalized groups are accurately identified and included in social protection programs. Leveraging technology to expand social registries can improve targeting and service delivery.
• Digital Payments and Financial Inclusion: Paying social assistance benefits digitally into women’s bank or mobile money accounts can improve their account ownership and enable them to retain greater control over transfers. However, it’s essential to ensure women have access to mobile phones and financial literacy training to fully utilize these services.
• Data Collection and Analysis: Enhancing the availability of sex-disaggregated data and using it to inform policy and program design is essential. Developing monitoring frameworks to assess progress, both locally and globally, is crucial for gender equality outcomes.
• Economic Inclusion Programs: Integrating productive economic inclusion components such as digital finance, entrepreneurship support, and links to market support into social protection programs can help women access secure, well-paying employment opportunities.
• Care Economy: Using social protection systems to expand the supply and uptake of care services (e.g., childcare, elder care) can create employment opportunities and enable women to participate more fully in the workforce.