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Over the past decade, the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) has consistently shown that governments need to look at discriminatory laws, social norms and practices to achieve gender equality and promote women’s empowerment. This 2019 global report provides an overview of the main outcomes of the SIGI in relation to women and the family, their physical integrity, access to productive and financial resources and their civic rights. Building on these outcomes, this report provides a set of policy recommendations to enhance governments’ efforts to deliver their gender-equality commitments through a three-pronged approach: starting with legal reforms and transformative gender policies, enforcing laws through community mobilisation and empowerment, and learning about the efficiency of policy through monitoring.
Over the past decade, the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) has consistently shown that governments need to look at discriminatory laws, social norms and practices to achieve gender equality and promote women’s empowerment. This 2019 regional report provides an overview of the main outcomes of the SIGI in 12 Eurasian countries in relation to women and the family, their physical integrity, access to productive and financial resources and their civic rights, as well as the economic cost they represent. Building on these outcomes, the report provides a set of tailored regional policy recommendations to enhance Eurasia's governmental efforts to deliver their gender-equality commitments through a three-pronged approach: legal reforms and transformative gender policies, laws through community mobilisation and empowerment, and policy efficiency through accountability and monitoring.
Gender equality and women’s empowerment can only be achieved if countries take action to tackle and eliminate discrimination in their legal frameworks, social norms and practices. The SIGI 2020 Regional Report for Latin America and the Caribbean provides new evidence-based analysis on the setbacks and progress in achieving gender equality between 2014 and 2019. The report uncovers discrimination in social institutions faced by Latin American and Caribbean women in various dimensions; within the family and household context, in relation to physical integrity and access to productive and financial resources, as well within the political and civil spheres. It also explores various development perspectives such as the cost of discriminatory social institutions for Latin American and Caribbean countries and the socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for women and girls. Building on the regional and sub-regional analysis of how discriminatory social institutions continue to hinder efforts toward SDG 5, the report provides a set of policy recommendations to reshape gender norms, promote women’s empowerment and build a truly inclusive society.
The SIGI 2021 Regional Report for Africa provides regional analysis on how discriminatory social institutions, such as formal and informal laws, social norms and practices, continue to constrain women’s empowerment and restrict their access to opportunities and rights. It gives new evidence on the impact of these discriminatory social institutions on three key dimensions of women’s empowerment across the region: their physical integrity, their economic situation and their political voice, leadership and agency. The report provides regional as well as thematic policy recommendations that aim to transform gender norms, promote women’s empowerment and build a truly inclusive society, especially in the current context of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Achieving gender equality and tackling discriminatory laws, social norms and practices set a direct path toward a more inclusive economy and society. The SIGI 2021 Regional Report for Southeast Asia provides new evidence-based analysis on the setbacks and progress in achieving gender equality between 2014 and 2019 in 11 countries. The report uncovers the discrimination women face within social institutions in various dimensions; in the family and household context, in relation to physical integrity and access to productive and financial resources, as well within the political and civil spheres. The SIGI 2021 Regional Report for Southeast Asia explores the interaction between women’s empowerment and discriminatory social institutions by looking specifically at four core areas – health, education, the economic dimension and decision making. It also unveils the cost of discriminatory social institutions for Southeast Asian countries and the socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 crisis for women and girls. Building on the regional analysis of how discriminatory social institutions continue to hinder efforts toward SDG 5, the report provides a set of policy recommendations to enhance governments’ efforts to deliver on their gender equality commitments by 2030.
What are the root causes of gender inequality? Building on the fifth edition of the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI), the SIGI 2023 Global Report provides a global outlook of discriminatory social institutions, the fundamental causes of gender inequality. It reveals how formal and informal laws, social norms and practices limit women’s and girls’ rights and opportunities in all aspects of their lives. Globally, 40% of them continue to live in countries where gender-based discrimination is assessed as high or very high.
The report stresses how discriminatory social institutions curtail women’s and adolescents’ fundamental access to sexual and reproductive health and rights. It also sheds light on the gendered impacts of climate change and underlines how women can play a pivotal role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. To accelerate efforts aimed at achieving SDG 5 and eliminating the underlying and structural factors that hamper women’s empowerment, the report offers concrete policy actions. It calls for a gender-transformative approach to leverage crises and challenges into windows of opportunity to establish women and men as agents of change.
What are the structural barriers to women's empowerment and inclusive development in Southeast Asia? Building on data from the fifth edition of the SIGI, the SIGI 2024 Regional Report for Southeast Asia: Time to Care provides new evidence-based analysis on the progress and setbacks in eliminating the root causes of gender inequality in 11 countries of the region. It underscores how multiple personal status laws perpetuate gender-based legal discrimination. The analysis also shows that social norms governing gender roles and responsibilities worsened between 2014 and 2022, particularly affecting women’s educational and economic rights.
The report explores a critical policy area for the region, the care economy. Stressing the gendered, informal, and unpaid dimensions of care, it draws on social, demographic, educational and economic evidence to forecast a growing demand for care services in Southeast Asian countries. The report advocates for the strategic development of formal care systems as a unique opportunity to accelerate women's economic empowerment, build inclusive societies and strengthen the region's resilience to external shocks – including those induced by climate change. To dismantle the barriers that prevent the emergence and expansion of such a formal care economy, it provides concrete recommendations to policy makers and other stakeholders.
This report points to the growing number of labor migrants in Asia and examines the policy question of how to best safeguard their rights. Governments and stakeholders in both origin and destination countries have largely recognized their mutual interest in safeguarding labor migrants. Multilateral frameworks have also put this in focus, with safe and orderly migration seen as important. This report examines some of the key policy questions in protecting migrant workers, including how to promote fair recruitment of less skilled workers, and how to address vulnerable groups such as irregular migrants and domestic workers. The four chapters in this report draw on issues raised and discussed during the Sixth Roundtable on Labor Migration in Asia: Safeguarding Labor Migrants from Home to Workplace that was held in Tokyo from 3 to 5 February 2016. The event brought together regional experts and policy makers and was co-organized by the Asian Development Bank Institute, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the International Labour Organization. The report’s introductory chapter reviews recent regional migration trends. Two statistical annexes provide an overview of migration flows within Asia and between Asia and other regions.
This volume compiles the consensus documents developed by the OECD Working Group for the Safety of Novel Foods and Feeds from 2015 to 2019. It deals with the composition of common bean, rice, cowpea and apple, four important crops for agriculture and food consumption worldwide. The science-based information collated here is intended for use during the regulatory assessment of food/feed products derived from modern biotechnology, i.e. issued from transgenic plants. Compositional considerations are provided for each species, including tables detailing the key nutrients, anti-nutrients, possible toxicants, allergens and other metabolites contained in the products. This essential information and solid data can be used in the comparative approach as part of the novel food/feed safety assessment. It should be of value to crop breeders and applicants for commercial uses of novel foods and feeds, to regulators and risk assessors in national authorities, as well as the wider scientific community. More information can be found at BioTrack Online.
Volume 8 of the Series contains the first biosafety ‘consensus document’ to deal with the biology of an insect, the mosquito Aedes aegypti. Issued by the OECD Working Group on the Harmonisation of Regulatory Oversight in Biotechnology, the science-based consensus documents collate information for use during the regulatory risk assessment of biotechnology products, i.e. transgenic organisms (plants, animals, micro-organisms) when intended for release in the environment. Ae. aegypti mosquito is vectoring yellow fever, dengue, Zika and Chikungunya diseases in tropical and sub-tropical regions worldwide. Biotechnological applications are developed to control the mosquito population and reduce virus transmission. The book provides information on Ae. aegypti taxonomy, morphology, life cycle, reproductive biology, genetics, ecology, interactions with other species and the environment. The mosquito effects on human and animal health, and the control strategies/specific programmes to limit its development are also summarised.
The chemical industry is one of the largest industrial sectors in the world and is expected to grow fourfold by 2060. Indeed modern life without chemicals would be inconceivable. Given the potential environmental and human health risks from exposure to chemicals, governments and industry have a major responsibility to ensure that chemicals are produced and used safely.
The OECD assists countries in developing and implementing policies and instruments that protect human health and the environment, and in making their systems for managing chemicals as efficient as possible. To eliminate duplication of work and avoid non-tariff barriers to trade, emphasis has been on developing shared frameworks for gathering and assessing information on potential chemical risks. The time-tested OECD Mutual Acceptance of Data (MAD) system provides a major basis for generating savings to governments and industry. This report provides an overview of the benefits and estimates the total savings from OECD work to be more than EUR 309 million per year.
This report offers an initial overview of the available information regarding the circumstances, nature and outcomes of the education of schoolchildren during the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns of March-April 2020. Its purpose is primarily descriptive: it presents information from high quality quantitative studies on the experience of learning during this period in order to ground the examination and discussion of these issues in empirical examples. Information is presented on three interrelated topics: the nature of the educational experience during the period of lockdowns and school closures; the home environment in which education took place for the vast majority of schoolchildren; the effects on the mental health and learning outcomes for children during this period. The data come primarily from 5 countries (France, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States) with additional information on some aspects for 6 additional countries (Australia, Belgium (Flanders), Canada, Finland, Italy and the Netherlands).
This report will be of interest to policy makers, academics, education stakeholders and anyone interested in a first international empirical analysis of the effects of the pandemic on the lives and education of schoolchildren.
This review highlights achievements of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, IMSS) in a number of areas – human resources, technological capacities and relations with suppliers – which were previously identified by the OECD as pivotal for the successful reform of IMSS procurement operations. This report highlights the progress made and offers recommendations to support IMSS in achieving procurement excellence and fulfilling its mandate to provide the best possible, most cost-effective healthcare services to citizens.
The OECD Secretary-General's annual report to ministers covers the OECD’s 2017 activities and some 2018 highlights. It includes the Secretary-General's activities and those of his office, the OECD’s horizontal programmes and directorate activities, as well as the activities of its agencies, special entities and advisory committees.
For more than 50 years, the OECD has sought to promote better policies for better lives in almost all areas of policy making and implementation through co-operation, dialogue, consensus and peer review. The OECD is one of the world’s largest and most trusted sources of comparable statistical data on economics, trade, employment, education, health, social issues, migration, the environment, and many other fields.
Secure medical supply chains are a cornerstone of resilient health systems. Medical supply chains are complex and internationalised, often involving many suppliers. The COVID-19 pandemic, which combined an unprecedented surge in demand with interruptions in supply and trade, exacerbated pre-existing, rising shortages of essential medicines, such as antibiotics and anaesthetics, and generated shortages of medical devices, such as face masks and respirators. This report offers insights into the risks and vulnerabilities of the supply chains of medicines and medical devices. Policy options to anticipate and mitigate risks of shortages of medicines and medical devices, both routinely and in the context of severe crises, are analysed. Most importantly, the report shows that strengthening the long-term resilience of medical supply chains requires collaborative approaches that balance measures best undertaken by the private sector with those more appropriately managed by governments or supranationally.
This joint OECD-European Commission publication presents a comprehensive international comparison across all EU and OECD countries - as well as selected G20 countries - of the integration outcomes of immigrants and their children, using 74 indicators based on three strands: labour market and skills; living conditions; and civic engagement and social integration. To place the comparison in its proper context, the publication also provides detailed data on the characteristics of immigrant populations and households. Three special-focus chapters are dedicated to examining gender issues, youth with a migrant background, and third-country nationals in the European Union.
This publication highlights how immigrants and their children are integrating into OECD societies, judging their progress against key indicators. Many areas are considered (material living conditions, health, education, labour market, civic engagement) as integration is a multi-dimensional issue. Measures of outcomes, as well as of progress made over the past decade, are presented in comparison with outcomes of a reference group (the population born in the country of residence). Three series of questions are addressed: 1) To what extent does the average performance of immigrants differ from that of the native-born?; 2) Can these differences be explained by structural effects (different distributions by age, educational level, etc.)?; 3) How has integration record evolved over the past decade?
An introductory chapter provides a detailed description of the populations under review (foreign-born persons and households, as well as native-born offspring of immigrants). The final chapter gives an overview on discrimination issues, as this is one possible source of persistent disadvantages of immigrants and their children.
The costs of mental ill-health for the individuals concerned, employers and society at large are enormous. Mental illness is responsible for a very significant loss of potential labour supply, high rates of unemployment, and a high incidence of sickness absence and reduced productivity at work. In particular, mental illness causes too many young people to leave the labour market, or never really enter it, through early moves onto disability benefit. Today, between one-third and one-half of all new disability benefit claims are for reasons of mental ill-health, and among young adults that proportion goes up to over 70%. Indeed, mental ill-health is becoming a key issue for the well-functioning of OECD’s labour markets and social policies and requires a stronger focus on policies addressing mental health and work issues. Despite the very high costs to the individuals and the economy, there is only little awareness about the connection between mental health and work, and the drivers behind the labour market outcomes and the level of inactivity of people with mental ill-health. Understanding these drivers is critical for the development of more effective policies. This report aims to identify the knowledge gaps and begin to narrow them by reviewing evidence on the main challenges and barriers to better integrating people with mental illness in the world of work.
Too many workers leave the labour market permanently due to health problems or disability, and too few people with reduced work capacity manage to remain in employment. This is a social and economic tragedy common to virtually all OECD countries. It also raises an apparent paradox that needs explaining: Why is it that the average health status is improving, yet large numbers of people of working age are leaving the workforce to rely on long-term sickness and disability benefits?
This report, the last in the OECD series Sickness, Disability and Work: Breaking the Barriers, synthesises the project’s findings and explores the possible factors behind the paradox described above. It highlights the roles of institutions and policies and concludes that higher expectations and better incentives for the main actors – workers, employers, doctors, public agencies and service providers – are crucial. Based on a review of good and bad practices across OECD countries, this report suggests a series of major reforms are needed to promote employment of people with health problems.
The report examines a number of critical policy choices between: tightening inflows and raising outflows from disability benefit, and promoting job retention and new hiring of people with health problems. It questions the need for distinguishing unemployment and disability as two distinct contingencies, emphasises the need for a better evidence base, and underlines the challenges for policy implementation.
Why is it that health is improving, yet more and more people of working age end up out of the workforce relying on long-term sickness and disability benefits? This first report in a new OECD series on sickness, disability and work explores the possible factors behind this paradox. It looks specifically at the cases of Norway, Poland and Switzerland, and highlights the role of institutions and policies. A range of reform recommendations is put forward.