To truly promote sustainable development and address the root cause of other issues such as poverty, we must combat gender inequality.
Camila dos Santos*
The upcoming G20 Summit in Brazil will focus on fostering social inclusion, combating hunger and poverty, enabling just energy transition, promoting sustainable development, and reforming multilateral institutions as general priorities. Cutting across all these agendas, it is crucial to discuss the impact of gender inequality and its effects on exacerbating the various crises currently faced.
Globally, men possess 50 percent more wealth than women and dominate positions of political and economic power, with only 18 percent of ministers, 24 percent of parliamentarians, and around 34 percent of managerial positions worldwide being occupied by women. These figures reveal an entrenched inequality perpetuated by the uneven distribution of unpaid domestic and caregiving work. According to Oxfam (2020), women and girls—especially those living in poverty and belonging to marginalised groups—dedicate 12.5 billion hours daily to unpaid caregiving work, along with many additional hours of work in exchange for inadequate and unequal wages. The caregiving work performed by these women not only sustains families and ensures a healthy and productive workforce for society but also contributes at least US$10.8 trillion to the global economy.
Given the immense productive power of the care economy, one of the key points for discussions at this year's G20 will be combating gender inequality and understanding that this issue is at the heart of the fight against poverty and the promotion of truly sustainable development.
Historically, the social organisation of care work has proven to be unjust and unequal, as women are often assigned the primary or exclusive responsibility for these activities. Black women and female immigrants bear an even heavier burden of physical strain, as Françoise Vergés alerts us to the feminisation and racialisation of the cleaning industry worldwide. When asking “Who cleans the world?” Vergés reminds us that cleaning and caregiving practices have become inseparable from an economy that divides bodies between those entitled to good health and those whose health does not matter.
Limited opportunities reflect the disproportionate caregiving responsibilities attributed to girls and women, hindering their education and employment. Time devoted to caregiving creates barriers, perpetuating multidimensional poverty and inequalities in gender, class, race, ethnicity, and territory. In Brazil, women invest nearly 22 hours weekly in unpaid domestic and caregiving tasks, compared to men's 11 hours. Black women, in particular, allocate even more time, totalling 23.5 hours each week as per the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) data.
In the rest of the world, the outlook does not appear more promising. According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2023, at the current pace of progress, it will take 131 years to achieve full gender equality worldwide. The World Economic Forum itself recommends increasing women's economic participation and achieving gender equality in leadership positions as key factors to address broader gender gaps in families, societies, and economies.
To reverse this unequal situation, governments will need to expand and improve public policies, such as providing access to affordable childcare, parental leave, and healthcare and eldercare services, aiming to promote the well-being of individuals and the economy as a whole. Additionally, various actions must be promoted, including ensuring decent work for all caregivers; recognising and redistributing unpaid domestic and caregiving work; expanding incentives for increased education and school attendance; ensuring the qualification and retention of women in competitive jobs; and upholding the right to family planning and reproductive health.
However, the immense challenge of addressing care economy issues in G20 decision-making reveals that gender inequalities also manifest differently on a geographic scale. While Europe (76.3 percent) and North America (75 percent) lead in gender parity globally, the Middle East and North Africa (62.6 percent) are the most unequal regions for women to live in as of 2023. This indicates that efforts towards gender equity should also guide the long-awaited reform of the multilateral system, another central theme on the G20 agenda this year. The historical underrepresentation of women in high-level positions in multilateral organisations—especially those from the Global South—significantly impacts how solutions are presented, negotiated, and implemented in their respective territories. After all, if women are the primary caretakers and contributors to the survival of our societies, they should also have a say in how those societies are governed.
Regarding this matter, the Blue Smoke initiative sheds light on elections and appointments to high-level positions within the United Nations (UN) and emphasises that, as of 2022, the representation of women in the UN system was 46.6 percent. However, this did not signify a step towards equity. While there are organisations within the UN system that have never been led by a woman, the effort to ensure women are represented in all aspects of leadership and decision-making is an even more critical priority. When examining the four main UN bodies coordinating global action on climate change, development, and biodiversity—the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)—Blue Smoke found that, collectively, these four bodies had only 20 percent female appointments in high-level positions.
By recognising care as an essential public good crucial to the economy of our societies and states, world leaders will have the opportunity to place the guarantee of the right to care and exist at the core of their strategies. This approach will be crucial not only in the pursuit of gender equality but also in sustaining our populations in current and future challenges, such as the path towards a fair and inclusive climate transition. The impact of global climate and health emergencies, coupled with the caregiving challenges of a progressively aging population and the implementation of state austerity measures that reduce public investment in social security, has intensified the crisis for individuals in caregiving roles. Thus, the assurance of care to the workforce is an increasingly pressing issue of public policy.
In 2023, under the G20's Indian presidency, the embrace of "women-led development" highlighted the pivotal role played by women entrepreneurs in propelling national economies. The concept recognizes the crucial contributions of women to GDP growth, job creation, and the provision of essential goods and services. As Brazil assumes control of the G20 presidency this year, leveraging this approach to include the politics of care is a must. Achieving this objective goes beyond being advisable; it demands a fundamental reassessment of our multilateral framework. This entails not just rethinking our approach from a decolonized and gender equality perspective but also actively integrating more female experts and practitioners from the Global South into the discussion and decision-making table.
It is essential to recognize that care is both a need and a right for all human beings. Our ability to navigate through present and upcoming crises depends on acknowledging that the responsibility for care work is not—and cannot be—restricted by gender. In 2024, the G20 will make strides toward reducing inequalities if it can acknowledge and take action to ensure care as a public good and a responsibility of states, essential to the economy and the preservation of life in our societies. Overcoming gender inequalities requires enabling women to have the freedom and enjoyment of their time and rights in other aspects of life. It is a right for all women, besides being economically necessary for our survival in society.
The challenge of the G20’s Brazilian presidency
Leading the G20 in 2024, Brazil presides over the debut of the Women's Empowerment Working Group on the Sherpa track. The initiative, first presented during the Indian presidency, has generated expectations for broad international cooperation on the topic. Among the group's priorities are equality; economic autonomy for women; combating misogyny and violence; and climate justice.
At the federal level, the Brazilian government has also been leading an initial but promising effort to redesign its care policy. In addition to consultations and a call for public participation, the Brazilian government has established an inter-ministerial working group to define the components that will structure and organise the National Care Policy in Brazil. The Care Working Group (GTI-Cuidados) is composed of 15 federal government agencies and three research entities, which, by the end of 2024, are expected to assess the current availability of care and the urgent needs of Brazilian women.
Both initiatives could position Brazil as a necessary leader in this issue, especially among the countries of the Global South, but this does not diminish the challenges to be faced. After all, the G20 is a group led by consensus, and it will be crucial for the member countries to agree on how to deliver and advance more equitable policies for women. This effort must be seen as an intersectoral construction, to be shaped by both governments and civil society.
In this regard, the recommendations arising from the G20 engagement groups will be crucial. Beyond the efforts of Women 20, these groups, such as Business 20, Think 20, and Civil 20, have already incorporated gender equality as a cross-cutting action in their discussions. This underscores the importance of an inclusive approach involving various sectors for reaching meaningful progress.
* This article was first published on the Observer Research Foundation website, as a chapter from the book “Raisina Chronicles: India’s Global Public Square”.
Notes on contributor
Camila dos Santos is an Advisor for International Relations and Cooperation in the Mayor's Office at Rio de Janeiro City Hall, Brazil. She holds a Master's and a PhD in International Politics from the Institute of International Relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). The opinions expressed here are of a personal nature and do not reflect the stance of the institution to which the author is affiliated.
