Women’s1 lifelong health and nutrition status is intricately related to their reproductive histor... more Women’s1 lifelong health and nutrition status is intricately related to their reproductive history, including the number and spacing of their pregnancies and births, and for how long and how intensively they breastfeed their children. In turn, women’s reproductive biology is closely linked to their social roles and situation, including regarding economic disadvantage and disproportionate unpaid work. Recognizing, as well as reducing and redistributing women’s care and domestic work (known as the ‘Three Rs’), is an established framework for addressing women’s inequitable unpaid care work. However, the care work of breastfeeding presents a dilemma, and is even a divisive issue, for advocates of women’s empowerment, because reducing breastfeeding and replacing it with commercial milk formula risks harming women’s and children’s health. It is therefore necessary for the interaction between women’s reproductive biology and infant care role to be recognized in order to support women’s hum...
This paper highlights the case of MUVA Assistentes, a public works programme (PWP) that provided ... more This paper highlights the case of MUVA Assistentes, a public works programme (PWP) that provided training and mentoring to young vulnerable women (YVW) in urban Mozambique. Our paper draws out the main learnings from the MUVA Assistentes project to inform the design of other PWPs that have women’s empowerment as their major aim. We show through our analysis that it is possible for PWPs to achieve women’s empowerment, but only if they go beyond a sole focus on income provision through paid work to women. Instead, we argue that if PWPs formulate their theory of change in line with Kabeer (1999)’s notion of empowerment, with its three interrelated dimensions (resources, agency and achievements), women’s empowerment through PWPs can be both realistic and long-lasting. PWPs have always been popular in low- and middle-income countries as tools for poverty alleviation and mitigating high unemployment rates among young people. Given the disproportionate impact of poverty on women and girls,...
What does research on informal sector workers and the state entail in the time of Covid-19? The p... more What does research on informal sector workers and the state entail in the time of Covid-19? The pandemic has limited possibilities for in-person interactions and required adaptations in research approaches. These challenges are exacerbated when the subjects of the research are informal sector workers with limited access to technology and undefined spaces of work. In this article, we argue that the Covid-19 pandemic has magnified distances: between researchers located globally; between researchers and respondents; and between the state and people within informal employment. However, these distances also create new ways of working and opportunities for doing research. We discuss the challenges faced in the field, document the adaptations introduced to ensure robust research in difficult settings, and set out the limitations that remain. We also examine the ethical dimension of confronting dangerous misinformation related to the pandemic while conducting interviews, and the questions i...
Women’s1 lifelong health and nutrition status is intricately related to their reproductive histor... more Women’s1 lifelong health and nutrition status is intricately related to their reproductive history, including the number and spacing of their pregnancies and births, and for how long and how intensively they breastfeed their children. In turn, women’s reproductive biology is closely linked to their social roles and situation, including regarding economic disadvantage and disproportionate unpaid work. Recognizing, as well as reducing and redistributing women’s care and domestic work (known as the ‘Three Rs’), is an established framework for addressing women’s inequitable unpaid care work. However, the care work of breastfeeding presents a dilemma, and is even a divisive issue, for advocates of women’s empowerment, because reducing breastfeeding and replacing it with commercial milk formula risks harming women’s and children’s health. It is therefore necessary for the interaction between women’s reproductive biology and infant care role to be recognized in order to support women’s hum...
This paper highlights the case of MUVA Assistentes, a public works programme (PWP) that provided ... more This paper highlights the case of MUVA Assistentes, a public works programme (PWP) that provided training and mentoring to young vulnerable women (YVW) in urban Mozambique. Our paper draws out the main learnings from the MUVA Assistentes project to inform the design of other PWPs that have women’s empowerment as their major aim. We show through our analysis that it is possible for PWPs to achieve women’s empowerment, but only if they go beyond a sole focus on income provision through paid work to women. Instead, we argue that if PWPs formulate their theory of change in line with Kabeer (1999)’s notion of empowerment, with its three interrelated dimensions (resources, agency and achievements), women’s empowerment through PWPs can be both realistic and long-lasting. PWPs have always been popular in low- and middle-income countries as tools for poverty alleviation and mitigating high unemployment rates among young people. Given the disproportionate impact of poverty on women and girls,...
What does research on informal sector workers and the state entail in the time of Covid-19? The p... more What does research on informal sector workers and the state entail in the time of Covid-19? The pandemic has limited possibilities for in-person interactions and required adaptations in research approaches. These challenges are exacerbated when the subjects of the research are informal sector workers with limited access to technology and undefined spaces of work. In this article, we argue that the Covid-19 pandemic has magnified distances: between researchers located globally; between researchers and respondents; and between the state and people within informal employment. However, these distances also create new ways of working and opportunities for doing research. We discuss the challenges faced in the field, document the adaptations introduced to ensure robust research in difficult settings, and set out the limitations that remain. We also examine the ethical dimension of confronting dangerous misinformation related to the pandemic while conducting interviews, and the questions i...
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Papers by deepta chopra