UN WOMEN LAUNCHES GLOBAL CENTRE ON GENDER STATISTICS

October 8, 2018
UN Gender News

UN Women Kenya participated in a conference organised to launch the Global Centre of Excellence on Gender Statistics (CEGS), hosted by the Government of Mexico, whose mandate is to help to close gender data gaps and contribute to sustainable development globally and across Latin America and the Caribbean region. The Centre will lead research and innovation and collaborate with national statistical offices to generate and analyze gender statistics.

The launch was followed by a global conference on gender equality and the measurement of unpaid care and domestic work for achieving gender equality. The participants discussed time use research and measurement, including whether current measures adequately capture gender inequalities in unpaid care and domestic work; methodological difference in the measurement of unpaid care work and how this affects global monitoring of SDGs; innovations in measurement, including use of technology; and policy and programmatic utilisation of data on unpaid care and domestic work. The participants heard that time use surveys are becoming increasingly important for wholesome and comprehensive measurement of the economy, and currently, 126 surveys have been carried out in 175 countries. Some of the innovative methodologies being used include diaries and questionnaires. The meeting also heard that only 13% of countries globally allocate budgets on gender and women empowerment, and therefore advocacy through Making Every Woman and Girl Count programme is crucial for policy and budget allocation. In addition, quality and regularity of gender disaggregated data is crucial to measure progress on SDGs. It is also important that statistics should be comparable across the world, for effective and standardized measurement of progress on SDGs.

See below for details on the panels and to download presentations.

Monday, 10 September 2018

Presentation at the High-Level Panel discussion on CEGS

Session 1: Keynote address

The keynote focused on key topics being addressed as part of the Conference, including differences between activity-lists and time diaries, the measurement of supervisory or “on-call” responsibilities for children, the sick, elderly, and individuals with disabilities and the impact of question wording and survey design on the respondent reports.

Presentation by Nancy Folbre, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Session 2: Why measuring unpaid care and domestic work is important for addressing gender inequality?

The objective of this session was to discuss and identify research gaps. It focused on research findings on the links between unpaid care and domestic work and other measures of gender inequality, including poverty, employment and wages, and aimed to discuss evidence of causal links, where possible.

Gaelle Ferrant, Economist, OECD Development CentreModerator presentation
Valeria Esquivel, Employment Policies and Gender Specialist, International Labour Organization (ILO)Gender, time and income poverty in Argentina
Xiao-yuan Dong, Professor, University of WinnipegUnpaid Care work and Gender pay gaps in China
Tanni Mukhopadhyay, Senior Researcher and Policy Specialist, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)UNDP’s Gender inequality index, prospects for including unpaid care and domestic work
Linda Laura Sabbadini, Head of Research, Italian National Institute of StatisticsInnovations in Gender time use analysis for policy decisions: the Italian strategy

Session 3: How well do current measures capture gender inequalities in unpaid care and domestic work

The objective of this session was to discuss and identify gaps in the measurement of unpaid care and domestic work. It focused on the key measures of unpaid care and domestic work and related research, data collection and compilation efforts.

Moderator: Papa Seck, Chief Statistician, Research and Data Section, UN Women

Panelists:

Nancy Folbre, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts, AmherstHow well do time use survey measures supervisory or “on-call” responsibilities for children, the sick, elderly, and individuals with disabilities and how does this affect gender differences in unpaid care work?
Cecilia Tinonin, Project Technical Officer, Statistics Division, International Labour Organization (ILO)New international standards for gender statistics in paid and unpaid work
Mandy Yap, IDM Research Fellow, Australian National UniversityLessons learned for collecting time use data through the Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM)
Lauren Pandolfelli, Gender Statistics Specialist, UNICEFMeasuring unpaid care and domestic work among children for addressing gender inequality

Tuesday, 11 September 2018

Session 4: What do we know? How do methodological difference in conducting time use surveys affect data comparability and global SDGs monitoring?

The objective of this session was to discuss data quality issues and identify ways to improve the consistency and comparability of unpaid care and domestic work data. The session focused on the similarities and differences of main classification methods, including a discussion of other factors that affect global comparability of time use data.

Moderator: Ana Laura Pineda, Director General of Statistics, Information and Gender Formation, INMUJERES

Panelists

Francesca Grum, Chief of the Social and Gender Statistics Section, UN Statistics Division (UNSD)Time use surveys: Current status and challenges
Iliana Vaca, Social Affairs Officer, ECLACRegional challenges on time use surveys
Marjut Pietiläinen, Senior Researcher, Statistics FinlandHarmonised European Time Use Surveys (HETUS)
Vjollca Simoni, Head of European Integration Sector, INSTAT AlbaniaConducting time use surveys: Experiences and lessons learned from Albania
Jacques Charmes, Economist and Statistician, Institute of Research and Development

How do methodological differences affect measures of unpaid care and domestic work?

Session 5: Beyond time use surveys: innovations in the measurement of unpaid care and domestic work

The objective of this session was to discuss and learn about innovations in the measurement of unpaid care and domestic work. It focused on new initiatives and the potential of using new technologies to collect such data. The potential of alternative data sources, including administrative sources, big data, geospatial and project/programme data to inform new measures or complement existing ones were discussed.

Moderator: Nadine Gasman, Representative, UN Women Brazil

Panelists

Marjut Pietiläinen, Senior Researcher, Statistics FinlandExperiences and lessons learned from Finland’s time use survey and options for innovation
Allison Williams, Research Chair in Gender, Work and Health, McMaster UniversityLessons from Canada: What can GIS information tell us about gender equality and unpaid care
Indira Hirway, Director of and Professor of Economics, Centre for Development Alternatives (CFDA)Global comparability of time use data and methodological differences in conducting time use surveys: Addressing critical concerns with reference to the global south

Session 6: Policy and programmatic uses of unpaid care and domestic work data: How is this data used, if at all?

The objective of this session was to discuss the ways in which unpaid care and domestic work data are used in policy advocacy and formulation. The session focused on country experiences and included a discussion on the usefulness of household satellite to inform policy (i.e. beyond their advocacy uses), and how better linkages between data and policy can be fostered.

Moderator: Enrique de Alba, Vice President of Sociodemographic Statistics, INEGI

Panelists