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The Purple Pact
Literature Item
Author Information:
Name: European Women’s Lobby
Email: None
Website: None
Abstract:
Economic processes have a profound influence on social life, gender relations and equality between women and men. This paper analyses the current economic system from a critical feminist perspective with the aim to propose a radical shift in economic policy aiming to build a new and inclusive economic framework based on core feminist values. The feminist approach to the economy embodied in the EWL’s Purple Pact takes as a starting point the full participation of women in all areas of life and equal representation of women in all their diversity at all levels of decision-making, including economic decision-making. It is a fundamental pillar of democratic, universal, inalienable and indivisible human rights. It aims to build an inclusive economy for the well-being of all. The focus is a universal social care system with an infrastructure that can provide social and care services for all and quality services which are accessible and affordable. It also stresses the fact that environmental issues have always been, and are increasingly, also a matter of human rights and social justice and are thus feminist issues and an integral part of feminist economics. This paper is divided into three chapters s, which address the three pillars of the feminist care economy and are conceptualised as the Purple Economy: Chapter1 - Towards a Purple Economy: Creating an inclusive society in Europe. The chapter addresses the issues raised by the current macro-economic policy approach in Europe including monetary, fiscal and tax policy. It shows that the so-called ‘gender-neutral’ approach wreaks havoc on women and the natural environment, including non-human species. It makes a connection between the exploitation and degradation of the natural world and the subordination and oppression of women. The intersection of gender, as well as ethnic, racial and global social inequalities, makes climate change in particular a feminist issue. It advances an inclusive approach to macro-economics by proposing the Purple Economy, which seeks to integrate a gender perspective into fiscal, economic and employment policies and put care at the centre of macro-economic policy-making with a view to enhancing the well-being of all as well as protecting the natural environment. Chapter 2 - The Care Economy for the well-being of all: Building a caring society for the people and the planet. In the Purple Economy care is the backbone of society; it is what makes society function. It is the ‘invisible unpaid contribution to the economy’ that has so far been undervalued and unaccounted for. This includes taking care of children, the elderly, the sick, and persons with disabilities, as well as performing domestic work such cleaning and catering. The Purple Economy argues that care must be embedded in a human rights framework recognising the rights of carers and those that are taken care of and their capacity to act independently and to make their own free choices. It underlines that the state must build and maintain care infrastructures and services achieving the highest quality standards and in the same way, it shall invest in civil society self-organised care structures. The feminist care economy proposes a new Care Deal for Europe. Chapter3 - Building a feminist future: women, employment and the challenges of a changing labour market. The world today faces major employment challenges, in particular for women. At the same time, income inequality has increased across and within countries. This chapter highlights the challenges of the future labour markets (aging, a-typical forms of work, the gig economy, migration and intersectionality, etc.) from a gender perspective. It argues that given these challenges, women must be afforded decent work, security, personal development and an adequate social protection system. On the basis of the analysis and the proposal for a Purple Economy, the paper offers a coherent and timely set of recommendations to European and national policy-makers with a view to establishing a Purple Pact, i.e. an invitation to reshape the economy on the basis of a feminist approach to the economic framework in Europe.
Keywords:
Purple Pact; Gender egalitarian and sustainable economy
Dates:
Jan. 1, 2019 - None
Source Specificity:
Public Policy Document
Website:
https://womenlobby.org/IMG/pdf/purplepact_publication_web.pdf
Power Domains:
Political, Economic
Methods Tools:
Competence development, Awareness-raising, Monitoring
Country:
BE
City:
Brussels
Implementation Scale:
international
Language:
English
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