Gender considerations in the design and delivery of social protection programs are critical to meet overall objectives of reducing poverty and vulnerability. We provide an overview of the policy discourse and research on social protection and gender in low- and middle-income countries, focusing on social assistance, social care, and social insurance. Taking a ‘review of reviews’ approach, we aggregate findings from rigorous evaluations on women's health, economic, empowerment, and violence impacts. We show there is robust evidence that social assistance has beneficial effects across all four domains. In addition, there is emerging evidence that social care has positive impacts on women’s economic outcomes, but scarce evidence of its impacts on other domains. Aggregated evidence on the impacts of social insurance are lacking. Key design elements facilitating positive impacts for women relate to gender targeting; quality complementary programming; replacing conditionalities with soft nudges; ensuring the value, frequency, and duration of benefits are sufficient; and gender-sensitive operational components. We close with a discussion of evidence gaps and priorities for future research.

Most rural women and girls experience multiple disadvantages in their lives, because of systematic gender inequalities. Structural drivers, including discriminatory norms, create and maintain gender gaps in development outcomes. Gender transformative programmes seek to address the underlying structural causes of gender inequalities and transform unequal gender roles and relations. This paper aims to orient the future policy, research and programmatic work of national governments, practitioners and development partners on the adoption of a gender transformative approach (GTA) to social protection to improve results on rural poverty reduction, food security and nutrition. Social protection interventions rarely explicitly address social and gender norms and power dynamics at household level and beyond, but there is a growing demand to understand the potential of social protection policies and programmes to contribute to gender transformative outcomes. This paper critically examines the scope for social protection to be gender transformative and discusses the available evidence on gender transformative impacts of social protection. It also aims to identify how programmes can realistically become more transformative in their objectives, design features and outcomes.

Gender equality has been one of the defining projects of European welfarestates. It has proven an elusive goal, not just because of political opposition but also due to a lack of clarity in how to best frame equality and take account of family-related considerations. This wide-ranging book assembles the most pertinent literature and evidence to provide a critical understanding of how contemporary state policies engage with gender inequalities.

Millions of pounds of international development funds are invested annually in social protection programmes to tackle poverty. Poverty is perpetuated by risk and vulnerability, much of which is gendered. Despite this, little attention has been paid to gender-sensitive policy and programme design and implementation. Gender and Social Protection in the Developing World introduces a much-needed gender lens to these debates. Drawing on empirical evidence from poor households and communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the book provides rich insight into the effects of a range of social protection instruments. It concludes that with relatively simple changes to design and with investment in implementation capacity, social protection can contribute to transforming gender relations at the individual, intrahousehold and community levels. With a foreword by Stephen Devereux.

Globally, progress has been made in the fight against both poverty and gender inequality, including through the expansion of social protection programmes. Yet significant gaps remain. Many women and girls remain in poverty and often face different structural constraints and risks across their life course, related to their biological sex as well as entrenched gender norms that discriminate against them in many aspects of their lives. As poverty, risks and vulnerabilities - which social protection aims to minimize, reduce or tackle - are gendered, if the root causes of gender inequality are not investigated in evidence generation and addressed in policy and practice, poverty will not be sustainably eradicated, nor gender equality achieved. This paper provides an overview of the latest evidence on the effects of social protection on gender equality. It starts by considering how risks and vulnerabilities are gendered, and the implications of their gendered nature for boys' and girls', and men's and women's well-being throughout the life course. It then reviews and discusses the evidence on the design features of four types of social protection programmes - non-contributory programmes, contributory programmes, labour market programmes, and social care services - and their effects on gender equality, unpacking which design features matter the most to achieve gender equality. Finally, the paper concludes with implications for a future research agenda on gender and social protection.

As social protection programs and systems adapt to mitigate against the COVID-19 crisis, gender considerations are likely to be overlooked in an urgent effort to save lives and provide critical economic support. Yet, past research and learning indicates that small adaptations to make program design and implementation more gender-sensitive may result in overall and equality-related gains. We summarize some of these considerations for LMICs across five areas: 1) Adapting existing schemes and social protection modality choice, 2) targeting, 3) benefit level and frequency, 4) delivery mechanisms and operational features, and 5) complementary programming. It is our hope that COVID-19 will be an opportunity to address, and not exacerbate, pre-existing gender inequalities and lay the groundwork for more gender-sensitive social protection programming in LMICs beyond the crisis, building toward the wellbeing of societies as a whole.

The fifth edition of Social Policy for Effective Practice offers a rich variety of resources and knowledge foundations to help social work students understand and contend with the continually evolving social policy landscape that surrounds them. The authors have continued their values-based approach and kept the focus on clients’ strengths to help students position themselves for effective engagement on new fronts where policy threats and outcomes affect clients’ lives in myriad ways. The new edition comprehensively covers the process of defining need, analyzing social policy, and developing policy, and each chapter builds on the practical knowledge and skills forged from previous ones. New to this edition: Thorough examination of new policies, including challenges to the Affordable Care Act, voting rights, immigration, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as situations involving substance use, mental health, and economic inequality. Expanded coverage of shifting demographics, including population diversity and aging. Increased connections drawn between historical, present, and potential future policy contexts Updated exercises, exhibits, and social media links in-text and an entire suite of web-based tools found through www.routledgesw.com, including complementary reading suggestions and teaching tips, a full library of lecture slides and exam questions, and EPAS guidelines. For use as a resource in foundations generalist social policy courses, either at the baccalaureate or master’s levels, the new edition of Social Policy for Effective Practice will challenge students to find areas of policy practice that spark their passion and prepare them to think about and use policy practice as a tool that can lead to the changes they care about.