Dynamics of gender inequality in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia

在经社理事会“不平等动态”的核心领域内，拟议的全球性别问题研究框架多学科研究网络将重点关注世界三个区域八个国家的妇女劳动力参与和性别不平等问题：中东的伊朗和土耳其;北非的埃及、摩洛哥和突尼斯;南亚的孟加拉国、印度和斯里兰卡。在这样做时，它还计划借鉴在南欧的希腊、意大利和西班牙研究同一专题的研究人员的相关经验和专门知识。该网络将集中努力于两个领域：（1）经济结构、政策和机构在决定妇女就业机会方面的相互作用，（2）妇女参与经济活动的模式是两性不平等和一般社会不平等的关键决定因素。中东和北非（中东和北非地区）最令人担忧的是一个明显的矛盾，即虽然男女之间的教育差距已经缩小，妇女的生育率迅速下降，但女性劳动力参与率（FLFP）仍然是最低的。世界上任何地区。在南亚国家，尽管各国之间存在差异，但平均比率在世界上排名第三，仅次于中东和北非。因此，该网络的一个核心关切是帮助制定一个研究议程，以有助于解释为什么这三个区域的女性劳动力参与率相对较低，尽管它们存在结构性差异，并利用这一贡献来帮助说明家庭之间以及妇女本身之间的收入不平等。南欧国家，特别是希腊、意大利和西班牙三国非常有趣，因为它们有着类似的社会和性别不平等问题的历史，并且有丰富的文献，本拟议网络的研究人员可以利用这些文献来帮助解释中东和北非以及南亚历史趋势的性质。这一拟议网络在上述11个国家的探索性工作将集中于四个主要的研究问题。(1)妇女获得工作的障碍是什么？(2)妇女缺乏就业和收入对家庭一级的福祉有何影响？(3)性别不平等与劳动力市场分割之间的关系是什么，性别不平等对更广泛形式的社会不平等和收入不平等有什么影响？(4)解决这些研究问题需要哪些数据，需要填补哪些信息空白？在执行这一议程时，我们拟议的网络将包括来自学术和非学术机构（包括非政府组织）的研究人员，他们在我们的重点领域具有重要和广泛的经验。这些努力将包括博士生以及早期职业研究人员。网络成员将组成一个多学科小组，跨越经济学、发展研究、社会学、人类学、人口学、统计学和法律等领域，这些研究人员将参加三个讲习班，两个在伦敦，一个在开罗（后者与应急基金合作），以便集体深入讨论有关问题，探讨妇女参与劳动力的潜在研究领域，性别不平等。作为这些讨论的结果，网络研究人员将被组织成专题工作组，其成员将在讲习班之间保持相互联系，并将为整个网络编写的研究简报和最后报告提供投入。该网络的其他活动将包括在各种国际会议上组织小组讨论，并向其他感兴趣的研究人员、非政府组织和世界银行、劳工组织和联合国妇女署等国际机构积极传播该网络的成果。

Within the ESRC core area of the 'Dynamics of Inequalities', this proposed multidisciplinary GCRF Research Network will focus its efforts on women's labour force participation and gender inequality in eight countries in three world regions: Iran and Turkey in the Middle East; Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia in North Africa; and Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka in South Asia. In doing so, it also plans to draw on the related experience and expertise of researchers who have examined the same topic in Greece, Italy and Spain in Southern Europe. This Network will concentrate its efforts in two areas: 1) the interplay of economic structures, policies and institutions in determining women's access to employment and 2) the patterns of women's economic participation as key determinants of gender inequality and social inequality in general. Of central concern in the Middle East and North Africa (the MENA region) is the apparent contradiction that while the educational gaps between women and men have narrowed and women have experienced rapid declines in their fertility rates, female labour force participation (FLFP) rates remain the lowest of any region in the world. In the countries of South Asia, despite variations between countries, average rates are the third lowest in the world, after the Middle East and North Africa. Hence, one of the central concerns of this Network will be to help develop a research agenda that could contribute to explaining why female labour force participation rates are relatively low in these three regions despite their structural differences, and to leverage this contribution to help account for income inequality across households as well as across women themselves. The Southern European countries, particularly the three countries of Greece, Italy and Spain, are very interesting because they have a history of similar problems of social and gender inequalities and there is a rich literature upon which the researchers in this proposed Network could draw to help explain the nature of the historical trends in MENA and South Asia. The exploratory work of this proposed Network in the above eleven countries will concentrate on four major research-related questions. (1) What are the impediments to women's access to jobs? (2) What are the effects on the household-level well-being of women's lack of employment and income? (3) What is the relationship between gender inequality and labour-market segmentation and what is the effect of gender inequality on broader forms of social inequality and income inequality? (4) What are the data requirements for addressing such research issues and what information gaps need to be filled? In pursuing this agenda, our proposed Network will include researchers from academic and non-academic institutions (including NGOs) with vital and extensive experience in our area of focus. Included in these efforts will be PhD students as well as early career researchers. The Network members will constitute a multidisciplinary group, spanning the areas of economics, development studies, sociology, anthropology, demography, statistics and law.These researchers will come together in three workshops, two in London and one in Cairo (the latter in collaboration with the ERF), in order to collectively and intensively discuss the relevant issues and explore potential areas of research on women's labour force participation and gender inequality. As a result of these discussions, the network researchers will be organised into thematic working groups whose members will maintain contact with one another between workshops and will contribute inputs into the Research Briefs and Final Report produced by the Network as a whole. Additional activities of this network will include organising panels at various international conferences and the active dissemination of the network's outputs to other interested researchers, NGOs and international institutions such as the World Bank, ILO & UN Women.