Collaborative Research: States and Sex Equality: Why Do Goverments Promote Women's Rights?

合作研究：国家和性别平等：为什么政府要促进妇女权利？

• 批准号: 0550240
• 负责人: Sirje Weldon
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Purdue University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-05-01 至 2011-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0550240&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; States; Sex; Equality

When and why do governments adopt policies to promote gender equality and advance womens rights? Womens rights have a critical impact on democracy, economic prosperity, and the health and survival of children, but vary dramatically across societies in puzzling ways. Wealthy, industrialized countries, for example, are not necessarily more likely to adopt gender equality policies than poorer ones, and greater democracy sometimes leads to worse policies for women. What is more, governments that adopt gender equality policies in one area (such as violence against women) may resist adopting such policies in another policy issue-area (such as maternity leave). To understand the causes of change in womens rights, this project creates a database of policies in 70 countries representing all world regions, levels of economic development, and degrees of democracy. The database includes information on gender equality policies as well as political, socioeconomic, and cultural indicators at four points in time (1975, 1985, 1995, and 2005.) Focusing on a range of areas including family law; the legality and availability of contraceptives and abortion; policy on domestic violence; policies to promote political representation; and social policies affecting working parents, such as leave, day care, and child allowances, it includes more womens rights issues across a wider range of countries than any existing analysis. The database is used to evaluate different explanations for why governments promote womens rights. Specifically, the project shows that: 1) the causes and processes of change vary across different gender equality policies (issue distinctiveness); and 2) the forces advocating change, and those resisting it (political agents), are more and less powerful in different political contexts (agent- context interaction). In many Third World countries, profound inequality threatens womens lives and dignity. Even in many advanced democracies, equal rights for women remain a distant ambition. For these reasons, and because improving the status of women deepens democracy, promotes economic prosperity and helps children, promoting gender equality has become a priority of many international organizations and national governments. This study has broad impacts in that it will help national governments, international institutions, and womens and human rights organizations better understand the politics of gender equality, enabling them to design better strategies on behalf of women everywhere.

政府何时以及为何采取政策促进性别平等和促进妇女权利？妇女权利对民主、经济繁荣以及儿童的健康和生存具有重大影响，但在不同社会之间却有着令人费解的巨大差异。例如，富裕的工业化国家不一定比较贫穷的国家更有可能采取性别平等政策，而更大的民主有时会导致对妇女的政策更糟糕。更重要的是，在一个领域（如对妇女的暴力）采取性别平等政策的政府可能会抵制在另一个政策问题领域（如产假）采取这种政策。为了了解妇女权利变化的原因，该项目创建了一个数据库，其中包含代表世界所有地区、经济发展水平和民主程度的70个国家的政策。该数据库包括四个时间点（1975年、1985年、1995年和2005年）的性别平等政策信息以及政治、社会经济和文化指标。侧重于包括家庭法在内的一系列领域；避孕药具和堕胎的合法性和可得性；家庭暴力政策；促进政治代表性的政策；以及影响在职父母的社会政策，如休假、日托和儿童津贴，它涵盖了更多国家的妇女权利问题，比任何现有的分析都要多。该数据库用于评估政府为何促进妇女权利的不同解释。具体而言，该项目表明：1)不同性别平等政策的变化原因和过程各不相同（问题独特性）；(2)在不同的政治语境中，倡导变革的力量和抵制变革的力量（政治代理人）的力量有强弱之分（代理人-语境互动）。在许多第三世界国家，严重的不平等威胁到妇女的生命和尊严。即使在许多发达的民主国家，妇女的平等权利仍然是一个遥远的抱负。由于这些原因，也因为提高妇女地位可以深化民主，促进经济繁荣，帮助儿童，促进性别平等已成为许多国际组织和国家政府的优先事项。这项研究具有广泛的影响，因为它将帮助各国政府、国际机构、妇女和人权组织更好地理解性别平等的政治，使他们能够为世界各地的妇女设计更好的战略。