Measuring women’s economic empowerment at the intersection of gender, law, and development: an exploration of the UN Agenda 2030 Indicator Framework and its effects

Brosio, Magalí (2024). Measuring women’s economic empowerment at the intersection of gender, law, and development: an exploration of the UN Agenda 2030 Indicator Framework and its effects. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis studies how the increased use of indicators as technologies of global governance has shaped understandings of and struggles for women’s economic empowerment, and the role that the law plays in them. It does so by looking at the most ambitious project of governance by indicators to this date: the UN Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At its core, this thesis argues that the turn towards indicators has contributed to cementing a particular understanding of women’s economic empowerment built around formal legal entitlements that does not necessarily match the demands for economic justice put forward by the women’s movement(s).

The thesis is structured by three guiding questions: what role the law plays in women’s economic empowerment targets and indicators in the SDGs; what types of expertise and whose voices shaped the technical discussions behind those targets and indicators; and what we can learn about the national-level effects of those targets and indicators, through studying the case of Argentina. To answer these questions, I rely on a novel multi-method qualitative approach (that includes close reading of official and unofficial documents, interviews, and event ethnography), triangulating the data to produce a rich and multi-faceted understanding of the processes that underpinned the adoption and implementation of the SDG framework.

The findings of the thesis expose how the turn towards indicators as technologies of global governance has favoured certain types of technical expertise while side-lining the voices of women’s organisations. Likewise, the turn to indicators led to a conceptualisation of women’s economic empowerment that gives a very prominent role to legal reform as a tool for change, often disconnected from many women’s experiences of the law in their everyday lives. As a result, and through the case study of Argentina, I found that SDG 5 targets and indicators have underwhelming governance effects, and that the UN Agenda 2030 has very limited utility for feminists in government and civil society for advancing demands on economic empowerment at the national level.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):