This project has been funded by the UK Department for International Development (UK Aid) and seeks to produce comparative research across four countries; India, Pakistan, Nepal and Myanmar. Consortium partners consist of IMC Worldwide (lead), University of Portsmouth and the International Centre for Research. Additional institutional collaborators are the Lahore University for Management Studies and the University of Delhi.
The data will be both quantitative (e.g. household surveys) and qualitative (to include in-depth interviews). The project is 18 months in total with the final report due March 2017.
Research question
Our overall research question is as follows:
How can approaches to increase women’s economic engagement (WEE) also tackle violence against women (VAW)?
Sub research questions
Based on our current understanding, our sub research questions include:
- In each field site how does VAW affect women’s economic engagement (attendance, performance, type of job pursued etc.)?
- Under what conditions or in what contexts does wage work exacerbate VAW?
- Under what conditions does wage work become empowering for women (i.e. facilitate their agency, resources, achievements) and thereby decrease violence?
- What can employers do to improve women employees’ productivity while at the same time increasing their well-being in the workplace and at home? (well-being includes reduction of violence).
Our research will be focus on different levels, from individual and household to state and national programme level and will seek to engage both government, civil society and the private sector. The research can be divided into two broad steps:
Step one
The first step will be to develop an understanding of the beliefs, values, social frameworks and practical conditions in each site that shape both violence against women and women’s economic engagement. This will require in-depth intersectional analysis of various relevant socio-cultural, economic and political factors.
Step two
The second step will then be to consider how employers and employment programmes can improve women’s productivity while also diminishing the occurrence of VAW both at work and outside.
Objective
The overall impact objective is to generate new research that offers clear policy and programme direction on how WEE can be used as a vehicle to reduce and mitigate VAW.
Key questions guide our impact intentions:
- Does/can private sector engagement be better harnessed for the purpose of ending forms of VAW (e.g. work based harassment)?
- Can better relationships between civil society women’s organisations and the private sector bring positive results in reducing VAW?
- What works to end VAW and promote WEE?
- What positive case studies exist across countries that could be built open and replicated?