Freely (Un)Equal

This longitudinal evaluation of gender inequalities and economic growth addresses key questions in the evolving debate over the character of gender differentiation and the goals of womens empowerment. These questions include: 1) whether the impact of strategies of economic growth served to enhance or undermine the status of women; 2) whether changes in the status of women were accompanied by significant changes in gender inequality; and 3) the implications for existing debates. Section I reviews several sets of literature pertinent to the questions using three general approaches: modernization-neoclassical women in development and gender and development. Section II presents the data and methods used in the evaluation. The research assessed the contending interpretations reviewed in the first section by combining another set of cross-sectional and longitudinal data on womens status and inequalities between men and women with other existing indicators. Section III discusses the results in the following order: 1) cross-sectional patterns in womens status; 2) trends in womens status; 3) cross-sectional patterns in inequality between men and women; 4) trends in inequality between men and women; and 5) conclusion. Finally section IV presents an overall discussion of the findings of the whole longitudinal evaluation.

International trade plays a strategic position towards the success of the economic structure and is one of the crucial topics that can attract the attention of many countries, including ASEAN member states. This research study aims to explore, analyze and predict the effect of economic competitiveness, economic freedom, financial development, and gender equality on international trade in ASEAN countries. The study used panel-based secondary data with the Structural Least Squares analysis model. Research findings are known that economic competitiveness, economic freedom, financial development and gender equality are significantly able to increase the productivity of international trade in ASEAN countries. The results of the research can be used as evaluation and reference material for the government, business people and individuals in formulating regulations, policies, and taking steps to achieve economic goals.

Economic literature has widely discussed the importance of insti­tutions in general, and that of monetary freedom in particular, for economic growth in post-communist countries, yet less is known about the determi­nants of institutional quality in these countries. While some studies argued that initial social conditions matter for institutional building, not much em­pirical work has been done to econometrically demonstrate their influence. The present paper fills this void by using regression analysis in order to assess the impact of the strength of civil society right after the fall of communism on monetary freedom in subsequent years, on a sample of former commu­nist countries. As a simple OLS regression is prone to endogeneity problems, the author uses an instrumental variable approach, instrumenting the ini­tial strength of civil society through the number of victims of terror during communism. The paper proves that the initial strength of civil society has a positive, significant and sizeable impact on monetary freedom 5-6 years after the transition process has begun.

Gender equality in emergency medicine: Ignorance isn't bliss.

The literature has documented evidence that economic freedom is positively associated with economic growth, investment spending, income equality, employment, gender equality, etc. Economic freedom is also found to be associated with a country’s rule of law and legal regime. There is, however, little studies examining how economic freedom affects a firm’s performance such as firm valuation and profitability. The evidence presented in this study shows that economic freedom strengthens a firm’s valuation and profitability. Additionally, firms headquartered in emerging markets or younger firms from countries with higher levels of economic freedom experience higher valuation and profitability. That is, economic freedom is more beneficial for firms from emerging markets and is crucial to the success of early-stage firms.

Gender equality is a critical factor for all ingredients of a healthy society and sustainable development. Therefore, measures to decrease gender inequalities in economic, social, and political life are important for the economic and social development of a society. This study analyzes the influence of education level and economic freedom on gender inequality in emerging markets over the 2000–2020 term through causality and cointegration tests. The results of the causality test uncover a bidirectional causality between education level, economic freedom, and gender inequality. In other words, there exists a mutual interaction among education level, economic freedom, and gender inequality in the short term. Furthermore, the findings of cointegration analysis indicate that education level and economic freedom have a negative impact on gender inequality in the long term, but education level is much more effective on gender inequality than economic freedom in nearly all emerging markets.

Abstract
 This study takesup” Dimensions of Gender Equality in India.”While examining the dimensions the researchers compares the gender development index reports of states in India Gender equality-a driver for economic growth, matters in its own right,and as as pre requisite for the health and development of families and economies. The term gender equality has been on the corpet for the past two decades. The millennium development goals set gender equality and women empowerment at 3 rd place. Earlier women empowerment had been assessed interns of access to resources and later on moved to control over resources. The resources include physical resources. Fiscal resopurces, financial resources and intellectual resources. The term empowerment has been pronounced with the term empowerment after the millennium year. The post 2015 framework present a unique opportunity to build on the achievement of the millennium development goal, while also addressing that lag behind. The sustainable development goal also set Gender equality at fifth place. The reason is that Gender inequality persists everywhere and stagnates the progress of a country. The un equal treatment or perceptions of the individuals on the basis of gender have been witnessed not only in developing countries like India, but also in developed countries aswell. Gender related inequality in human well being is one of the most crucial issues in many states in India.The female dis advantage in survival is the important dimension that has drawn the attention of policy makers. InIndia the situation is not even among the states; Kearela has lesser discrimination while Odissa has higher discrimination. The sex ratio is also high in kerela which shows positive symptoms of women empowerment. Maharastra introduced property rights for women. Its percapita income is high compared to kerela but GDI is low. Female Education growth in kerela promotes gender equality.Has education alone dis appear inequalities is the million dollar question? Per capita income is not so high in kerela as compared to other southern states.
 
 The study examines gender equality on the basis of Gender Development Index, which measures gender gap in human development by accounting disparities between men and women in three dimensions of human develoipme3nt, a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living. The global gender gap report places India at 135 out of 146 countries. India has moved from 140 to 135 from last year. Though India is moving towards one of the developed nations in the world, Gender inequality pulling its growth. Which factor is hindering the SGDs 5 the goal gender equality in India? The issue of gender inequality had been in the lime light in all academic conferences, seminars and symposiums. Why gender inequality prevails in higher degree in some states of India? What are the policy measures have to be pinned up? What are the measures to be added in those states? Any other indicators to be included along with HDI indicators? These are the research questions to be addressed. This paper is an attempt made by the researchers to address these issues

While prior literature has found that greater economic freedom improves economic growth, development, and productive entrepreneurship, the literature is mixed on economic freedom's impact on gender outcomes. We add to this literature by exploring several measures of gender outcome gaps in employment, financial inclusion, and education utilizing the women, business, and law index from the World Bank to proxy for the strength of legal institutions for women. Employing the Fraser Institute's economic freedom of the world index as our measure of economic institutions, our results show that greater economic freedom only results in improved (relative) gender outcomes when strong legal institutions are available to women. Thus, while improving economic freedom as a path to development and growth is important, the benefits for gender outcomes clearly depend upon the extent to which a country's underlying laws and legal institutions provide equal treatment to women and men. In areas where legal institutions are most discriminatory against women, higher economic freedom actually seems to have a negative impact on (relative) gender outcomes. We test the robustness of our results and examine the findings for (relative) gender equality in non‐market areas such as political representation and health outcomes.

We evaluate the impact that the economic freedom exerts on the shadow economy for a sample of 152 countries from 1995 to 2017. In order to solve endogeneity issues, we rely on an instrumental variable approach and find that a change in the economic freedom index, induced by the level of independence of financial markets from government actions, adversely affects the hidden economy. To corroborate the interpretation of our results we also show how each subcomponent of the economic freedom index explains the downward change registered in the shadow economy. Further, the negative effect is mainly found in countries characterized by a low level of democracy and strong corruption, whereas in more democratic and less corrupt countries the economic freedom positively affects the size of the shadow economy. Consistent with these findings, we also highlight that the effect of the composite indicator of economic freedom on the hidden economy is U-shaped and this relationship is exclusively driven by both business regulation and the freedom in the legal system and property rights.

This article explores three dimensions of the current state of gender equality in Serbia: public policy on gender equality, public opinion on gender equality and the context of Serbia’s accession to the EU. Using data from the recent (2010) public opinion survey of citizens’ attitudes towards gender equality, the authors address the following issues: (1) harmonization of public policy on gender equality in Serbia with EU policies; (2) differences between public policy on gender equality in Serbia and citizens’ preferences; (3) convergences/divergences between citizens of Serbia and EU citizens regarding gender equality. As Serbia’s policy of promoting gender equality in the last decade has been dominated by the political goal of accession to the EU, it shows where the opinions converge (violence against women is seen as a priority), and where there are certain differences (intervention in gender equality issues). The authors show the complexity of ideological positions among average Serbian citizens, while highlighting different (and sometimes contradictory) paradigms in the official public policy on gender equality. While Serbian citizens still do not place gender equality high on their political agenda, they are convinced that it has a certain value, which does provide some important pointers for the future.

Lyčių lygybė yra siejama su lygių galimybių užtikrinimu moterims ir vyrams veikti viešojo ir privataus gyvenimo sferose. Istoriškai susiklostęs stereotipinis mąstymas ir patriarchalinės nuostatos lėmė tai, kad visuomenėje vis dar pastebima diskriminacijos apraiškų lyčių pagrindu: moterų ir vyrų atlyginimų disproporcija, nelygios galimybės įsidarbinant, retesnis moterų dalyvavimas priimant sprendimus. Lyčių lygybės problemos yra ne tik nacionalinių valstybių politinėje darbotvarkėje, bet plačiai akcentuojamos ir Europos Sąjungoje (ES), o lyčių aspekto integravimas yra vienas pagrindinių „Europa 2020“ strategijos tikslų. Lyčių balansui pasiekti įvairiose gyvenimo srityse reikia užtikrinti moterų ir vyrų lygias galimybes ne tik de jure, bet ir de facto. Lietuvoje vis daugiau dėmesio skiriama lyčių lygybės politikai, tačiau pasie­kimai šioje srityje yra vidutiniški. Skandinavijos valstybėse lyčių lygybės politikos įgyvendinimas vyksta sklandžiai – tai turėtų tapti pavyzdžiu kitoms valstybėms. Nors vyrų ir moterų lygias galimybes Lietuvoje įtvirtinta įstatymai, o institucijos lyčių lygybės klausimams skiria vis daugiau dėmesio, tačiau lyčių lygy­bės politikos įgyvendinimas Lietuvoje nėra toks sėkmingas kaip Švedijoje. Todėl straipsnio tikslas – pa­lyginti Lietuvos ir Švedijos lyčių lygybės politikos įgyvendinimo panašumus ir skirtumus, atskleisti lyčių lygybės politikos raidą abiejose šalyse. Straipsnyje nagrinėjamas Lietuvos ir Švedijos lyčių lygybės poli­tikos įgyvendinimas ir lyginami šalių lyčių lygybės politikos ypatumai. Švedija lyginamajame kontekste pasirinkta kaip gerosios praktikos pavyzdys Lietuvai. Švedijos ir Lietuvos lyčių lygybės politikos lyginimas padėjo atrasti lyčių lygybės politiką reglamentuojančių įstatymų ir juos įgyvendinančių institucijų pana­šumus ir skirtumus bei išryškinti moterų ir vyrų proporcijas valdžioje. Atlikus lyginamąją analizę pateikia­mos įžvalgos dėl priežasčių, lėmusių lyčių lygybės politikos raidą abiejose šalyse. Nors Lietuva atsižvelgia į ES lyčių lygybės politikos standartus, o teisinis lygių galimybių reglamentavimas yra panašus kaip ir Švedijoje, tačiau vis dar yra pastebimas atotrūkis tarp formalios ir realios lyčių lygybės.

<p>The investigative aim of this thesis is to explore the recontextualization of the normative discourse of gender equality in Kenya’s policy discourse of women’s rights. Its purpose is threefold: Firstly, it attempts to examine the different ways in which policy makers use language in the course of interpreting and implementing gender equality policies. This includes a focus on both the linguistic and rhetorical/discursive strategies that these policy makers employ for such functions as endorsing, negotiating, legitimating, or even contesting given policy proposals. Secondly, the thesis endeavours to bring to light the different and changing conceptions of gender (in)equality espoused by the various policy actors involved in Kenya’s policy discourse of women’s rights over a critical ten-year period between 1995 and 2005. These policy actors include the Kenyan government; women’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who actively seek to influence government policy; and the United Nations’ organizations with responsibility for ensuring the implementation of women’s human rights. Thirdly, the thesis attempts to show the extent to which policy initiatives proposed by the human rights-based women’s NGOs in Kenya are taken up in the texts produced by the Kenyan government. In order to gain a better understanding of the discursive interactions between and amongst the policy actors in this study, an intertextual approach to Norman Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis (CDA) was used. The thesis drew discourse samples for analysis from the Kenyan government’s periodic reports detailing progress towards fully meeting the terms of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); the documents produced by the Committee overseeing the Convention that provided assessment of the Kenyan government’s reports; the Kenyan government’s official texts on gender policy; and Kenyan women NGOs’ annual reports and other texts. Though many scholars and researchers of women’s rights praise the UN Committee’s imperatives for bringing about policy changes concerning women’s rights globally, the findings from this study confirm that the Committee for CEDAW has only textual power, and that it lacks enforcement powers to ensure the implementation of the universal rights of women within the local milieu. In a similar vein, this study demonstrates that though the women’s NGOs play a significant role both in terms of identifying important areas of concern for policy intervention, and in necessitating changes in the genres of the national government, their participation has largely failed to ensure the Kenyan government’s epistemological shift from its current state of recognizing the existence of women’s rights, to the phase of implementing them. This thesis also establishes that differing conceptions of gender (in)equality and ideological differences between the Committee for CEDAW and the Kenyan government tend to influence both the Committee’s and the Kenyan government’s use of varied discourses, genres, and styles, with the intent of manipulating to outmanoeuvre one another. This means that both the Kenyan government and the Committee live in different worlds, suggesting a continuing gap between the Committee’s normative knowledge of women’s rights to gender equality, and the Kenyan government’s cultural relativist perspectives concerning such rights. As a solution to these power struggles and political differences that derail policy making on gender equality, this study recommends the need both for the Committee and the Kenyan government to employ a reflexive and pragmatic mix of both the universalist and cultural relativist approaches to gender equality. This will bring forth shared areas of interest concerning women’s rights between the UN and the Kenyan government, based on their applicability within the local context. Moreover, such an approach will create a possibility for the Committee to understand the Kenyan government’s cultural relativist/competing discourse of women’s rights as another way of conceiving gender equality (i.e. productive power-knowledges), rather than viewing them as irrelevant cultural claims that stand in stark opposition to the universal understandings of women’s rights to gender equality. Likewise, the aforesaid reflexive and pragmatic mix of approaches will help the Kenyan policy makers to develop a more critical and nuanced view of the universal approaches to gender equality, thereby reducing their varied forms of resistance to gender equality via subtle evasive strategies. Methodologically, this thesis shows how a comparative intertextual approach to Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis can be used as a framework for establishing the relations between policy text and context. This framework includes the micro-level of textual/linguistic analysis, the meso level of discursive interactions, and the macro level of socio-cultural practice at the local, institutional, and societal levels. Theoretically, the thesis demonstrates the different ways in which particular philosophical arguments and emancipatory concepts from Foucault’s theory of governmentality and transnational feminist rhetorical theory can be combined and exploited by linguists to promote different ways of theorizing and thinking concerning the development of policies for promoting gender equality.</p>

<p>The investigative aim of this thesis is to explore the recontextualization of the normative discourse of gender equality in Kenya’s policy discourse of women’s rights. Its purpose is threefold: Firstly, it attempts to examine the different ways in which policy makers use language in the course of interpreting and implementing gender equality policies. This includes a focus on both the linguistic and rhetorical/discursive strategies that these policy makers employ for such functions as endorsing, negotiating, legitimating, or even contesting given policy proposals. Secondly, the thesis endeavours to bring to light the different and changing conceptions of gender (in)equality espoused by the various policy actors involved in Kenya’s policy discourse of women’s rights over a critical ten-year period between 1995 and 2005. These policy actors include the Kenyan government; women’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who actively seek to influence government policy; and the United Nations’ organizations with responsibility for ensuring the implementation of women’s human rights. Thirdly, the thesis attempts to show the extent to which policy initiatives proposed by the human rights-based women’s NGOs in Kenya are taken up in the texts produced by the Kenyan government. In order to gain a better understanding of the discursive interactions between and amongst the policy actors in this study, an intertextual approach to Norman Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis (CDA) was used. The thesis drew discourse samples for analysis from the Kenyan government’s periodic reports detailing progress towards fully meeting the terms of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); the documents produced by the Committee overseeing the Convention that provided assessment of the Kenyan government’s reports; the Kenyan government’s official texts on gender policy; and Kenyan women NGOs’ annual reports and other texts. Though many scholars and researchers of women’s rights praise the UN Committee’s imperatives for bringing about policy changes concerning women’s rights globally, the findings from this study confirm that the Committee for CEDAW has only textual power, and that it lacks enforcement powers to ensure the implementation of the universal rights of women within the local milieu. In a similar vein, this study demonstrates that though the women’s NGOs play a significant role both in terms of identifying important areas of concern for policy intervention, and in necessitating changes in the genres of the national government, their participation has largely failed to ensure the Kenyan government’s epistemological shift from its current state of recognizing the existence of women’s rights, to the phase of implementing them. This thesis also establishes that differing conceptions of gender (in)equality and ideological differences between the Committee for CEDAW and the Kenyan government tend to influence both the Committee’s and the Kenyan government’s use of varied discourses, genres, and styles, with the intent of manipulating to outmanoeuvre one another. This means that both the Kenyan government and the Committee live in different worlds, suggesting a continuing gap between the Committee’s normative knowledge of women’s rights to gender equality, and the Kenyan government’s cultural relativist perspectives concerning such rights. As a solution to these power struggles and political differences that derail policy making on gender equality, this study recommends the need both for the Committee and the Kenyan government to employ a reflexive and pragmatic mix of both the universalist and cultural relativist approaches to gender equality. This will bring forth shared areas of interest concerning women’s rights between the UN and the Kenyan government, based on their applicability within the local context. Moreover, such an approach will create a possibility for the Committee to understand the Kenyan government’s cultural relativist/competing discourse of women’s rights as another way of conceiving gender equality (i.e. productive power-knowledges), rather than viewing them as irrelevant cultural claims that stand in stark opposition to the universal understandings of women’s rights to gender equality. Likewise, the aforesaid reflexive and pragmatic mix of approaches will help the Kenyan policy makers to develop a more critical and nuanced view of the universal approaches to gender equality, thereby reducing their varied forms of resistance to gender equality via subtle evasive strategies. Methodologically, this thesis shows how a comparative intertextual approach to Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis can be used as a framework for establishing the relations between policy text and context. This framework includes the micro-level of textual/linguistic analysis, the meso level of discursive interactions, and the macro level of socio-cultural practice at the local, institutional, and societal levels. Theoretically, the thesis demonstrates the different ways in which particular philosophical arguments and emancipatory concepts from Foucault’s theory of governmentality and transnational feminist rhetorical theory can be combined and exploited by linguists to promote different ways of theorizing and thinking concerning the development of policies for promoting gender equality.</p>

PurposeGender diversity and equality vary tremendously among countries. This is a particular challenge for foreign subsidiaries, when the level of gender diversity and equality differs between the home and host country. Various indicators such as a low-gender pay gap or a high ratio of females in managerial positions suggest that Scandinavia is ahead in terms of gender diversity and equality, whereas those indicators suggest that the level in Japan is currently lower. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how executives leading Scandinavian subsidiaries operating in Japan perceive this situation, and whether and what kind of actions they take to initiate change.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on a qualitative analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with executives of Scandinavian subsidiaries in Japan.FindingsFindings reveal that executives of Scandinavian subsidiaries respond to the major differences in gender equality between Scandinavia and Japan with three strategies of change: resistance and rigid change, compromise and moderate change, and adaptation and maintaining status quo. Moreover, the findings indicate that the strategy of change varies depending on individual differences of the executives, e.g., nationality, and organizational differences, e.g., subsidiary size.Research limitations/implicationsDue to the small sample size, the generalizability of the findings is limited. Given the paucity of research on this topic, this approach provides first insights for building a basis for future studies.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the scarce literature on gender diversity and equality in multinational enterprises by identifying strategies of how gender equality can be fostered in a non-Western context from a top executive perspective.

Understanding women’s roles, experiences and barriers to participation in ocean science education in Kenya: recommendations for better gender equality policy