Gender, Poverty and the Development of the Right to Social Security

This paper examines the international right to social security as declared in the UDHR, and its possible influence in addressing women’s poverty. It proposes rethinking the way ‘work’ is understood to better include the full range of women’s experiences, such as reproductive work, productive work, and non-productive activity. The authors suggest the right to social security must have application on both a national and global scale to reach women in need of social security in a globalised workforce. The importance of transformative understandings of equality is emphasized, and a substantive equality framework is discussed which adequately considers the diversity of women’s experiences. Finally, seven principles are outlined which represent the goals necessary to achieve a substantively equal, gendered right to social security.