National Consultant for Technical Assistance to Care Work Research with Gender Lens - Home-based

Consultant

Overview

Provide technical assistance in gender-focused care work research and reporting

You have:

• PhD equivalent in Law, Social Sciences, Gender Studies, Public Administration, Public Policy, or other gender and rights related field
• At least 7 years of experience in gender related researches and rights related researches
• Strong experience in policy analysis and policy related research
• Strong writing and reporting skills in both English and Chinese
• Prior experience working with the UN is preferred

Contract

This is a National Consultant contract. More about National Consultant contracts.

Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

Women’s economic empowerment is a priority area of UN Women globally. Recent years, as one drive to economic growth, care work including unpaid and paid care work[1] has been increasingly recognized and discussed. Unpaid care work is often uncounted or undervalued. [2] All over the world, women have shouldered disproportionately the unpaid care. In China, women spend around 2.5 times more time on unpaid care and domestic work than men. [3] The amount of time devoted to unpaid care work is negatively correlated with female labour force participation, the quality of employment and gender wage gaps. These inequality in economic status further affects gender equality in all aspects of the society. [4]

The 3R approach-Recognize, Reduce and Redistribute unpaid care work is recommended to tackle gender gaps in unpaid care work.[5] To reduce the unpaid care work, it needs investment in physical and social infrustrctures, as well as by transferring production of care to paid workers. [6]

However, the paid care work (especially domestic work), is also normally under valued, which affected the well being of domestic workers as well as the provision of affordable and high quality domestic service. The paid care work performed by domestic workers is largely informal and lacking legal protection. Among 67 million domestic workers worldwide, only 10 per cent have access to social security, the majority of domestic workers have no unemployment insurance, and no work injury insurance.[7]

The issue of care burden and its socio-economic impact has been emphasized by international conventions and guidance. Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) sixty-third session recognized and emphasized the value of unpaid care and domestic work. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has set a specific target on unpaid care work-target 5.4 “Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate”. The ILO Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, 2011 (No.189) calls for policy measures to formalize domestic workers in informal employment through extending labour and social protection, in order to protect domestic workers from future shocks.

In China, the National Bureau of Statistics conducted time use surveys in 2008 and 2018 respectively, which provide data for research to analyze how men and women using their times on paid work, unpaid work, study and training, and other activities.

The COVID-19 has aggravated existing inequalities. Unpaid care work has increased, especially for women, with children out-of-school, heightened care needs of older persons and overwhelmed health services.[8] Domestic workers have been the affected severely by the COVID-19 outbreak. Nearly three-quarters of domestic workers around the world – more than 55 million people – are at significant risk of losing their jobs and income due to lockdown and lack of effective social security coverage, according to new estimates by the ILO. While care systems under immense strain during pandemic, it also offers the opportunity to “build back better”.

[1] Care work includes direct care activities, such as feeding a baby or nursing an ill person and indirect care activities, such as cooking and cleaning.

[2] Diane Elson, Labor markets as gendered institutions: Equality, efficiency and empowerment issues, World Development, vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 611–627 (1999).

[3] ILO, Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work (2018)

[4] OECD Development Centre, 2014. Unpaid Care Work: The missing link in the analysis of gender gaps in labour outcomes (2014).

[5] The UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment, Unpaid Work and Care-A policy Brief (2016)

[6] Diane Elson, Recognize, reduce, redistribute unpaid care work unpaid care work: How to close the gender gap (2017)

[7] ILO, 2020, Beyond contagion or starvation: giving domestic workers another way forward

[8] Policy Brief, The Impact of COVID-19 on Women, April 2020

Duties and Responsibilities

Objectives of the Assignment

Against the backdrop of the 25th anniversary of Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and in the context of COVID-19, UN Women will cooperate with ILO in China to conduct a joint research, with the objectives to:

• Enhance the recognition of the value of unpaid care work;
• Better understand the trends of unpaid care work in China, with heterogeneity analysis of this trend among different groups (elderly women, single women (especially who have a paid job) and rural women) if possible;
• Understand the impacts of COVID-19 on domestic workers;
• Advocate and make policy recommendations about incentive policies introduced by governments and enterprises in China and abroad.

UN Women China Office will hire a national consultant to provide technical assistance, perticullary from gender resepective, to the care work research and report writing.

Scope of work

Under the supervision of the Programme Manager of UN Women China, the consultant will work together with a selected research team composed of economics experts to provide technical inputs and suggestions from gender perspective to the whole process of the research, including the report development.

1. Participate in the literature review of the past researches on care work and unpaid care work and relevant policies in China;
2. Provide inputs and suggestions from the gender perspective to the design of research plan, including but not limited to the following:
   1. Developing methodologies;
   2. Identifing data resources;
   3. Defining and clarifing indicators avaiable for gender analysis;
3. Participate in the data analysis, especially in gender analysis;
4. Provide inputs to the preliminary findings presenations and address the gender concerns from UN Women and ILO team;
5. Provide gender review and recommendations to the research report development.

The consultant is expected to start as soon as possible. The consultant will work from home and is required to work closely with the research team and have regular meetings with UN Women and ILO programme staff.

Expected Deliverables

Tasks & Deliverables

Target dates

Summary of technical inputs to literature review and the research plan/protocal development.

15 September 2020

Summary of key findings based on gender analysis to the data collected.

20 October 2020

Summary of technical inputs to the draft research report prepared by the research team.

20 November 2020

Summary of technical inputs to the final research report prepared by the research team.

10 December 2020

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example

Required Skills and Experience

Qualification Requirements

Education

PhD equivalent in Law, Social Sciences, Gender Studies, Public Administration, Public Policy, or other gender and rights related field.

Experience and skills

• At least 7 years of experience in gender related researches and rights related researches;
• Strong experience in policy analysis and policy related research;
• Strong writing and reporting skills in both English and Chinese;
• Prior experience working with the UN is preferred.

Submission of application

Interested candidates are encouraged to submit an electronic application to hr.bangkok@unwomen.org with -cc to unwomen.china@unwomen.org, no later than 30 August 2020.

The application package includes:

• CV
• Personal History Form (P11) which can be downloaded from http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs
• Two samples of gender or rights related research articals or reports, with two references.
• Financial proposal: the financial proposal shall specify a lump sum amount breaking down the professional fee for each deliverable and all related costs (if any). Please see the financial proposal template as below:

Items

Amount CNY

1. Lump Sum fee

   Deliverable 1

   Deliverable 2

   Deliverable 3

   Deliverable 4

Total Financial Proposal

Payments

Payments for this consultancy will be based on the achievement of each deliverable and the certification that each has been satisfactorily completed. Payments will not be based on the number of days worked but on the completion of each stated deliverable within the indicated timeframes on the satisfactory completion of the task.

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Potential interview questions

Added 6 years ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: jobs.undp.org