Toward Gender Equality in East Asia and the Pacific examines the relationship between gender equality and development and outlines an agenda for public action to promote more effective and inclusive development in East Asian and Pacific countries.

This book establishes gender issues as a major focus within developments shaping higher education in the Asia Pacific region. The discussion is framed as a response to various dedicated efforts, such as that of the United Nations, to foreground gender as a site for political discourse throughout the region. Throughout the volume, authors confront issues that continue to gain prominence in higher education as a policy arena, including the degree to which higher education operates within a framework of gender equity and how higher education appointments—even promotions—are sensitive to gender. By touching specific instances throughout Korea, Japan, China, Australia, India, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan, authors offer an unprecedented big-picture view of gender-relevant policy issues.

This report looks at the track record of progress on womens empowerment in the East Asia and Pacific region, especially in the context of the evolving economic and political environment. The paper coincides with the ten-year anniversary of the Beijing World Conference on Women and focuses on changes since then, within the context of broad trends over the last forty years. Since the 1960s many East Asian countries have invested heavily in human development and have reaped the benefits in terms of economic growth and improved social indicators. Aggregate regional indicators show the dramatic improvements in the health and education of women that have occurred over the last forty years.

Women still confront multiple forms of discrimination in every Asia-Pacific country. Despite robust growth and progress on many fronts, gender inequality persists and deprives the region of a significant source of human potential. Countries in the region that have done the most to tap women's talents and capacities have traveled farthest on many aspects of human development. Countries that tolerate deep inequities fall short of equal citizenshipndash;and face social instability and economic loss, particularly acute amid global economic downturn. Today, Asia- Pacific stands at a crossroads. But with better institutions, openness to ideas, and more resources, the region is well equipped to achieve gender equality. This Report looks at three key opportunities for achieving gender equality-economics, politics and the law. Transforming institutions in all three areas, changing attitudes and assessing progress continually will open the door wide to rapid, far-reaching change for human development.

Despite economic growth, decreasing fertility rates, and rising education levels, women in Asia are on average 70% less likely than men to be in the labor force, with the country-to-country percentage varying anywhere from 3% to 80%. Results of a new simulation model suggest that closing the gender gap could generate a 30% increase in the per capita income of a hypothetical average Asian economy in one generation. This report discusses the reasons behind the continuing gap in the labor force participation rate between women and men in Asia and the Pacific, the impact of this gap on economic growth, and policy lessons drawn from specific country experiences in the region and elsewhere in the world. The channels of gender inequality are so complex that policy interventions must go beyond economics to effectively address them. Such a multidimensional approach to reducing gender inequality could unleash a nation's full potential for inclusive growth and development.

This book provides a comparative analysis of the social, economic, industrial and migration dynamics that structure women’s paid work and unpaid care work experience in the Asia-Pacific region. Each country-focused chapter examines the formal and informal ways in which work and care are managed, the changing institutional landscape, gender relations and fertility concerns, employer and trade union responses and the challenges policy makers face and the consequences of their decisions for working women. By covering the entire region, including Australia and New Zealand, the book highlights the way different national work and care regimes are linked through migration, with wealthier countries looking to their poorer neighbours for alternative sources of labour. In addition, the book contributes to debates about the barriers to women’s participation in the workforce, the valuation of unpaid care, the gender wage gap, social protection and labour regulation for migrant workers and gender relations in developing Asia.