This archive report was first published on 11 January 2020.
According to a recent report by UN Women, women are contributing more in households due to increased exposure to economic empowerment, cushioning their families from financial hardships.
The report, titled Progress of the World’s Women 2019-2020, highlights that women globally are gaining access to resources earned through income, social protection, and asset ownership, leading to shifts in the balance of power in homes.
Despite this progress, the report notes that married women still contribute less in support of family duties, with 'motherhood penalties' in the form of reduced employment rates and a pay-gap between women with and without children remaining a persistent problem.
Single mothers who lack income protection from a second earner face a much higher risk of poverty compared to two-parent families, the report adds.
However, the report also recognises that while overall women's access to economic resources has improved, the distribution of unpaid care work remains largely unequal, with women doing three times as much unpaid care and domestic work within families.
On family size, the report notes that more women are voicing their concerns in reproductive matters such as childbearing, with women exercising greater agency and voice in decisions regarding whether and when to have children, and how many.
Birth rates are declining globally, although the pace of change varies across regions, the report notes, with significant changes occurring in whether, when, and with whom women and men form intimate partnerships.
Delaying marriage has enabled women to complete their education, gain a stronger foothold in the labour market, and support themselves financially, the report adds, with cohabitation on the rise in some regions.
These changes reflect women's growing reluctance to enter into partnerships in which they are expected to take on a subordinate role, the report says.
Furthermore, the report notes that rising divorce rates have been one of the most visible features of family change in most regions since the 1980s, with the liberalisation of divorce laws leading to lower rates of suicide by women, a lower incidence of reported domestic violence, and fewer instances of women being murdered by their spouses.
