Gender-responsive and inclusive social protection research - what's next?
Written by Paola Pereznieto, Senior Consultant, in collaboration with The STAAR Facility.
The UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) recently hosted a workshop to review the current state of evidence on gender-responsive and inclusive social protection and identify where more research is needed. The event brought together top researchers and practitioners to share their thoughts on future research priorities, potential policy impact and how FCDO can best contribute to advancing this important field.
Join the conversation! We're inviting contributions to share your insights, current research, and ideas on gaps and priorities in this Google Doc.
The breadth and depth of existing research is significant…
Participants presented and heard findings from 11 research initiatives – including the recently-concluded GRASSP programme led by UNICEF Innocenti as part of FCDO’s Gender-Responsive Social Protection programme. (For more detailed information on all 11 presentations, including a link to watch the presentations, please refer to the endnote.) Highlights from the day included:
1. Social protection with links to complementary services is effective but under-funded
There is evidence that cash plus programmes with a clear gender-responsive design have a positive impact, yet their coverage is low. Funding restrictions to these types of programmes mean that while gender may be integrated into design, it is often deprioritised in delivery.
Gender-responsive social protection has been used to prevent gender-based violence and promote women’s economic empowerment. In recently evaluated programmes, interesting insights showed that linking other services to the cash programme, such as group information sessions with couples that cover domestic violence, household decision making and gender equality, can help tackle discriminatory gender norms and attitudes.
2. Social protection increases women’s resilience to climate risks
Social protection can reduce the intergenerational transmission of poverty and build resilience against macro-level shocks such as economic crises and climate change. Gender norms and discrimination in contexts such as India and Peru have had a profound impact on outcomes particularly in adolescence. Social protection has the potential to support young people through poverty and climate shocks, and improve their early nutrition, mitigating negative life outcomes later in life, including for their future children.
3. Social protection instruments must consider intersectional vulnerabilities
Participants spotlighted research exploring how social protection can mitigate intersectional vulnerabilities which affect mobility, economic autonomy, health and related costs, and how design and implementation can reduce the barriers that exclude people from social protection schemes.. For instance, pensions can help reduce gender and age related vulnerabilities and strengthen dignity and independence. In the case of LGBTQI+ persons that are in a situation of poverty and marginalisation, ensuring public information regarding inclusion in social protection programmes is well communicated to avoid misinformation is an important mechanism to reduce exclusion.
4. Working with local women-led organisations is critical – especially in crisis contexts
Insighful research findings highlighted the importance of alternative funding for social protection, such as remittances and crowd funding, in contexts where conflict and war result in the absence of government and institutions. In these contexts, the active involvement of CSOs, including those working with women, is essential. Other research looking at social protection in crisis and conflict contexts noted that many of the results of social protection programming are strongly influenced by how programmes are delivered, and that there are important gendered aspects of this delivery to consider, in particular the feminization of the social workforce.
But important gaps in our understanding remain…
Participants noted the pressing need for more regional and linguistic diversity in gender-responsive and inclusive social protection research. And mentioned the importance of strengthening data repositories to increase use of relevant gender-disaggregated data. This might include gender-disaggregated time use data; longitudinal data to understand gendered impacts of social protection over the life course; and data on intersectionality. Importantly, the use of artificial intelligence as a tool to enhance social protection research is a knowledge gap worth exploring – both in terms of opportunity and risk.
Participants agreed that more and deeper research is needed both on longstanding gender equality issues - such as unpaid care, women’s exclusion from discussions around social protection, and importantly, social and gender norms and the role of community based and civil society organisations– as well as on “new” global megatrends that can have a strong influence on social protection design and delivery, including its potential for inclusive and transformative impacts. These trends include climate change, displacement, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data, and social protection delivery in fragile and conflict affected states.
A collaborative approach is needed to promote policy impact
Research cannot have impact in a vacuum. From identification of issues to be investigated right through to research design, implementation and communication – collaboration and co-creation with governments, funders, communities and CSOs is crucial. This approach is most likely to result in high-quality, diverse and policy-relevant evidence, while generating trust among potential users. Jargon-free comms, well-timed outputs and engagements and influential research champions will make sure the evidence gets to the right people.
So what next?
Five key themes for future research on gender-responsive and inclusive social protection emerged from the discussions:
- Social norms: understanding the role of social protection in influencing social norms, and how social norms affect the design and delivery of social protection. Future research could focus more specifically on where and how to effectively influence change, use longitudinal studies to understand how to make that change sustainable, and ultimately how a shift in social norms can influence the impacts of inclusive social protection.
- Care: building on existing research, interrogating women’s time use beyond childcare and understanding how social protection can support or compensate for that time. This research should then be situated in the broader 5 Rs approach: Recognise, Reduce, Redistribute unpaid care work, and Reward and Represent paid care work by promoting decent work for care workers.
- Unpacking “plus” for systems integration: understanding how how and why integrated services contribute to outcomes individually or jointly as part of a cohesive system, with a view to understanding how best to address different vulnerabilities in a holistic and integrated manner which brings together different supports and services.
- Understanding challenges faced by the social workforce in delivering social protection, especially in crises. There is a growing recognition of the relevance of the social workforce to improving social protection outcomes, and thus the need for a stronger, better compensated, better trained social workforce to deliver social protection programmes, particularly as it becomes more feminized.
- The gendered dimensions of climate and displacement and the use of social protection to build resilience and mitigate negative impacts is critical, particularly with a focus on understanding the value of gender-responsive social protection as a disaster risk finance mechanism that can reach the most vulnerable, both to build resilience and preparation, as well as a rapid mitigation and response mechanism in case of crises.
Importantly, three essential methodological considerations emerged as necessary to inform future research:
- Longitudinal research can shed more light on social protection results over the lifecycle, intergenerational and intersectoral issues and changes that occur, particularly in response to economic, climate and crisis events that may disrupt trajectories, and which social protection programmes can help mitigate. Understanding how different vulnerabilities combine and compound over time, as well as how social protection can mitigate those impacts, is crucial to designing effective programmes and systems.
- Multidisciplinary and mixed methods research offers valuable insights and a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the situation. This should include co-creating research ideas and implementation with potential or actual recipients of social protection and local civil society organisations, not only through small scale focus group discussions but more active consultation processes.
- Innovative research methods that combine relevant data sets to shed light on how different phenomena impact social protection effects to reduce poverty and vulnerability, such as combining climate, poverty and social protection delivery data to understand how these relate. There is significant potential for innovation in GRISP research and evaluations.
The discussion at the workshop marked the beginning of an engaging conversation on what research should focus on and how priorities should be defined over the next few months. We are interested in hearing from you! Here is a link to a Google Doc where you can write information about your current research on gender and social protection, as well as identifying gaps and/or research priorities for gender responsive and inclusive social protection research.
End note: Information on research initiatives
Find the recording of presentations HERE.
1. Ramya Subrahmanian – UNICEF Innocenti - Global Office of Research and Foresight. Gender responsive age sensitive social protection (GRASSP) research: Highlights
Timestamp: 00:00:00
2. Katherine Ford – Young Lives/University of Oxford – Longitudinal study
Timestamp: 00:34:11
3. Mona Ibrahim – University of Oxford – Re-imagining social assistance, A humanitarian response that tackles the roots of fragility
Timestamp: 00:46:57
4. Shalini Roy – International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) – Social protection, gender, and climate change
Timestamp: 00:59:05
5. Federica Foiadelli – Age International – Advancing gender equality through social protection in an ageing world
Timestamp: 01:11:00
6. Michael McGrath – Edge Effect – Social protection outcomes for the LGBITQ+ community
Timestamp: 01:49:00
7. Rachel Slater – Better Assistance in Crises (BASIC) Research – GESI research and findings
Timestamp: 02:00:48
8. Charles Knox-Vydmanov – Independent consultant – Gender and pensions
Timestamp: 02:14:00
9. Ana Maria Buller – London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) – Cash transfers and IPV: past, current and future research
Timestamp: 02:22:00
10. Rachael Pierotti and Birce Gokalp – World Bank – Africa Gender Innovation Lab: Testing Design Adaptations to Maximize Women’s Empowerment Benefits of Social Protection
Timestamp: 02:34:00
11. Dr Morgan Banks – London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) – Disability and Social Protection within the PENDA Programme
Timestamp: 02:46:46
