Side Event : Women’s autonomy and the care economy in the framework of a transformative and sustainable recovery with equality, Development in Transition (DiT) sessions

The crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus has accentuated the structural challenges of gender inequality and has generated a setback of more than a decade in terms of women's participation in the labor market, a deepening of the feminization of poverty and an increase in the burden of care work, even in higher-income countries such as Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay. Furthermore, as one of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the digitalization of economies that still face a significant gender gap in terms of access to and use of technologies, accentuated even more by income levels, has accelerated.

No country in Latin America and the Caribbean has yet achieved substantive equality between men and women, despite efforts to close structural inequality gaps. This project emphasizes the need for comprehensive policies for growth with equality, with the understanding that the future of work requires a profound transformation of gender relations in the countries of the region. ECLAC has been working to overcome these challenges and establish new social, political, economic, and fiscal pacts. To avoid setbacks and ensure progress towards gender equality, key to sustainable recovery, these pacts need to consider the analysis of digitalization and scenarios that will increase the labour participation of women in driving sectors.

ECLAC will organize a panel on the economic autonomy of women in the framework of a transformative and sustainable recovery with equality, promoting the debate and exchange of reflections and experiences among government authorities, academics and specialists in gender equality and feminist economics from Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean.

The questions that will guide the contents of the Panel will focus on:

• What are the main measures that governments need to take to achieve an economic recovery enabling women´s economic autonomy and the full enjoyment of their rights?

• What are the benefits of promoting the care economy as a driving sector within the framework of transformative and sustainable recovery?

• What are the milestones in the path towards a care society in the context of the transformative recovery?