As the UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, we conduct research to inform policymaking and implementation. This project brief summarizes our research on gender-responsive age-sensitive social protection.

1. PROJECT BRIEF
Gender-Responsive
Age-Sensitive
Social Protection
How can social protection
systems better deliver for
gender equality?
©
UNICEF/UN0378254/Panjwani

2. Overview
While social protection can profoundly improve
people’s lives – ensuring well-being and addressing
vulnerabilities to risks, shocks and stressors – it falls
short of its potential to advance gender equality.
Women and girls face distinct risks and vulnerabili-
ties. Harmful and discriminatory gender norms lead
to gender inequalities, such as the disproportionate
rate of unpaid care and domestic work undertaken by
girls and women relative to boys and men.When the
goals, design and implementation of social protection
policies and programmes fail to take gender into
account, they miss the opportunity to catalyze transfor-
mative change and sustainably reduce poverty.
A life course approach is equally important as
adolescents and youth face specific risks at certain
times in their lives. Events such as marriage or childbe-
aring, for example, can interrupt girls’ education and
women’s participation in the labour market, and further
increase their risk of poverty. By using this approach,
social protection can support women and girls at
critical points in their lives, disrupting harmful social
and gender norms, reducing the risk of poverty and
contributing to the advancement of gender equality.
Approach
We generate robust and quality evidence about what
works to incorporate gender and life course conside-
rations into social protection systems, by:
• Partnerships and collaborations with
governments, international agencies, universi-
ties and practitioners
• Developing conceptual and analytical framewor-
ks to outline how social protection can achieve
gender equality outcomes across the life course
• Testing hypotheses to show the effectiveness of
integrating gender responsiveness into social
protection
• Assessing how social protection initiatives
deliver on gender equality objectives in various
phases of the process
• Using evidence to promote research uptake to
inform decision-making by UNICEF
, develop-
ment partners, policymakers and practitioners,
including the Foreign, Commonwealth &
Development Office, the World Bank and national
governments.
Goal
Innocenti’s Gender-Responsive Age-Sensitive Social
Protection Research Programme – GRASSP – aims to
enhance the impact of social protection investments
on gender equality outcomes. It is primarily funded
by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development
Office with contributions from other partners.
Project Highlights
PROJECT BRIEF
Contact Info
Zahrah Nesbitt-Ahmed
Manager, Gender & Development (Research)
znesbitt-ahmed@unicef.org
Improving the conceptualiza-
tion,measurement and analysis
of gender equality outcomes
(Frameworks and Measures)
(2018–2021)
Pathways of change; Conceptual,
analytical and evaluative
frameworks; Synthesizing
evidence; Mapping and assessing
existing measures of gender
equality outcomes.
Nyasha Tirivayi
Social Policy Manager
jtirivayi@unicef.org
Under GRASSP
, Innocenti will conduct
multi-country research inAfrica and
LatinAmerica in 3 research streams,
with the objective of:
Investigating how to institutiona-
lize gender into social protection
(The Why and How: Systems focus)
(2020–2023)
Institutionalization of gender
responsiveness across different
components of the social protection
system; How, why and under what
conditions do reforms to institutio-
nalise gender in social protection
systems emerge and succeed or
fail?; Levers and mechanisms for
driving and sustaining change;
Political economy and key factors
(e.g. financing) enabling the
integration of gender into social
protection systems.
Unpacking change pathways by
exploring design and implemen-
tation features (The What
– programmatic focus) (2020–2023)
Effects of design and implemen-
tation features across the
gender-integration continuum
and life course on gender
equality and primary outcomes
of social protection programmes;
Moderating effect of contextual
factors and gender norms;
Gender-responsive policy and
programming in crisis contexts
and cost-effectiveness analyses.