Poverty data in Fiji is derived from household income and expenditure data, collected via periodic Household Income and Expenditure Surveys. Given gender inequality within households can be significant, assessing individual poverty by using household data and then assuming all household members have the same access to resources and opportunities is problematic. Household-level measurement also means accurate disaggregation of data is impossible. This makes the work of policy makers and advocates harder, masking differences rather than revealing them so they can be addressed.
The research demonstrated that, in general, women’s increased involvement in community financial management and income generation has not necessarily led to a redistribution of caring work or other unpaid household and community responsibilities.
This monograph describes an approach to farmer learning and agricultural extension known as the ‘Family Teams’ approach used in a project to improve the uptake and impact of training and small business development for women smallholder food crop producers in three regions of Papua New Guinea. The Family Teams approach enables farming families to explore issues of gender and culture within families, seeking to encourage more effective, sustainable and gender-equitable farming and business practices.
Findings from participatory action research undertaken with family and sexual violence service providers, advocates, businesses, and their employees in Papua New Guinea strongly indicate that workplace strategies should be modified to reflect cultural and other contextual specificities. In particular, workplace strategies should reflect local understandings about what constitutes family and sexual violence; who may perpetrate it and who may be victimised by family and sexual violence; and what supports are available to victims of family and sexual violence.
This study analysed a random selection of 908 cases from seven Pacific Island countries, including 111 domestic violence cases and 787 sexual assault cases. Each case is analysed to determine whether gender stereotypes, customary reconciliation (e.g. apology, forgiveness) or other contentious factors were considered during sentencing. Contentious factors are those factors which, when used in mitigation by the court, discriminate against the victim on the basis of her gender.
This research project was aimed at synthesising and integrating various experiences and perspectives on poverty held both by poor women and men and by professional poverty experts. The project team began with a review of the professional knowledge contained in the vast multidisciplinary literature on gender and poverty, gender and development, and gender-sensitive measures of poverty.
The link between women’s economic empowerment and the elimination of violence is pertinent in Papua New Guinea. Significant and persistent gender disparities limit the capacity of all Papua New Guineans to benefit from the country’s wealth of natural and human resources. Highlighting the costs of not supporting women, including those who are living with violence and those who are prevented from progressing in their careers, this short paper confirms the potentially transformative possibilities of gender-sensitive and affirmative action policies within the formal employment sector.
This study deals with research on eight critical areas of concern covered in the Revised Pacific Platform for Action 2005-2015: education, health, climate change and environment, economic empowerment, gender mainstreaming, leadership and decision-making, violence against women and human rights.
While gender research on each issue exists in one way or another in the Pacific, there are many unknowns as to the scope, nature, and quality of this research. This study therefore:
- Maps and provides a gap analysis of existing gender research in the eight thematic areas.
Employing an established survey treatment to subtly alter respondents’ perception of their relative economic wellbeing, it was noted that increased feelings of relative poverty make both women and men significantly more likely to support girls’ schooling and women’s paid employment, suggesting that relative economic insecurity can prompt support for women’s economic participation. However, increased feelings of relative poverty may trigger greater intra-household tension.
A multidonor initiative, the Second Rural Development Program (RDP II) was designed to improve basic infrastructure and services in rural areas and to strengthen the linkages between smallholder farming households and markets. Amongst other objectives, the program supports farming households to engage in productive partnerships with commercial enterprises.
This report looks at how gender-differentiated domestic work burdens impact the ability of women to allocate their labour to the cultivation, harvesting and processing of coffee and cocoa.
The report identifies gender-disaggregated trends in time allocation and links these patterns to household welfare outcomes. The note also outlines recommendations to improve outcomes for women in Papua New Guinea within these two sectors.
The State, Society and Governance in Melanesia program at the Australian National University and the International Women’s Development Agency undertook the Do No Harm research project in Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea to understand whether and in what ways economic inclusion and empowerment initiatives affect women’s experience of violence.
This research, exploring connections between women’s economic empowerment initiatives and increased violence against women in Solomon Islands, found that any equation between women’s economic empowerment and domestic violence is not always straightforward.
This research, exploring connections between women’s economic empowerment initiatives and increased violence against women in two provinces of Papua New Guinea and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, found that the economic advancement that many women are achieving rarely translates into actual empowerment, because they are rarely able to negotiate a decrease in domestic workloads when they bring income — often the only income — into the household.
This research, exploring connections between women’s economic empowerment initiatives and increased violence against women in two provinces of Papua New Guinea and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, found that the economic advancement that many women are achieving rarely translates into actual empowerment, because they are rarely able to negotiate a decrease in domestic workloads when they bring income — often the only income — into the household.