Despite numerous legal and policy interventions women continue to face significant disadvantage in both formal and informal work. The law, as currently conceived, has been unable to fully achieve women’s equality in the labour force.

The Oxford Human Rights Hub in partnership with the International Labour Organization and the University of Kent is hosting a conference on May 18 an 19, A Better Future for Women at Work to investigate transformative legal and policy strategies to empower women at work. The goal is to move beyond traditional debates on women’s role in the labour force and to think carefully on how we recognize and value different types of work (paid, unpaid, informal and formal).

In the lead up to the conference, the OxHRH is delighted to bring together this special blog series of international experts exploring these issues:

Hadas Madel (Tel Aviv University)-The Individual and Structural Aspects of Gender Inequality at Work

Ito Peng (University of Toronto)-Two East Asian Approaches to Care 

Sukhti Dasgupta (ILO)-Has India’s Employment Guarantee Programme Led to Transformative Gender Equality?

Guy Mundlak (Tel Aviv University) –‘You Work Like a Girl’: The Fragmentation of Work Through the Lens of Gender and Class

Ludo McFerran (University of Sydney)- Rights for Victims of Domestic Violence: Offering Security Through Workplace Protection in Australia

Aelim Yun (Seoul National University) A ‘state-generated maid?–care workers in the South Korea

A special thanks to Philippa Carr (Dphil Candidate, University of Oxford) and Rory Kelly (DPhil Candidate, University of Oxford) for their invaluable research assistance for this blog series.