Unpaid care work and the lack of access to affordable child care constitute key barriers to women's participation in labor markets. The International Labour Organization estimates that, in 2018, 647 million working-age adults were hindered from entering the workforce due to family...

Entrepreneurship can be a pathway to employment and economic empowerment for women. Over half of the women in developing countries are or aspire to be entrepreneurs, but most of them run subsistence oriented micro-businesses that are not seen as key drivers of innovation and growth. Among formal...

Adolescent girls face multiple challenges that restrict their horizons. They have to make decisions about employment and fertility at an early age with limited access to formal education and under restrictive social norms. Domestic responsibilities limit their time in school and educational...

Gender-based violence (GBV) affects more than one in three women over the course of their lifetimes, regardless of social or economic boundaries. Violence against women and girls takes a significant toll on survivors and their families and exacts heavy social and economic costs. In some...

Social and familial financial transfers are common in low-income communities and have positive social effects. To address this challenge, the authors designed and implemented a financial innovation to lower redistributive pressure among female cashew-processing workers: a blocked savings account...

Despite gender parity in access to microfinance, and many group-based microfinance schemes favoring women, women face more difficulty than men in getting loans of larger size, longer duration, individual liability, and more flexible terms that may promote firm growth.1 In Ethiopia, as in many...

Over the last decade, Cote d’Ivoire has witnessed a remarkable shrinking of its gender gap in agricultural productivity. When comparing similar households, the gender gap has been reduced by 32 percent

We evaluated the Londo public works program, which provided temporary employment and a bicycle to beneficiaries selected through public lotteries in the Central African Republic. The evaluation focused on the impacts of the program on households' welfare between 2 and 21 months after...