Gender equality and women and girls empowerment’ have become a top policy priority with the onset of the UN 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the wake of these declarations, a vast number of global development actors have adapted programs to follow up the UN goals. As a result of these campaigns the SDG Goal 5: 'Achieve gender equality and empowering women and girls' has become almost a social movement within the global development field. This development focus has been galvanized as pivotal for poverty reduction, health and wellbeing, economic growth and sustainable production and consumption. Women and girls have been campaigned as un-tapped development sources that if invested in will create win-win solutions for the entire world.
However, in 2023, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will—from now on—take 131 years to close the global gender gap. The July 2019 Report of the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, on progress to the SDGs stated that in approximately 90 countries, women daily contribute three times more hours than men to unpaid care and domestic work, which limits their time for education, paid work, and leisure, and reinforces socioeconomic gender bias and disadvantages.
By building on decolonial feminist approaches, this research area aims to enhance the understanding of how global gender inequalities are shaped by colonial legacies and capitalist structures, with a specific focus on rural sub-Saharan African gender perspectives.
The study-area investigates how unpaid labor burdens disproportionately borne by women, particularly in rural sub-Saharan Africa, perpetuate cycles of socioeconomic disadvantage and gender bias. In these contexts, women often carry the dual burden of unpaid care work and agricultural labor, reinforcing gendered inequalities that limit their access to education, economic opportunities, and political participation. This research focus will explore the intersections of gender, race, class, and rurality, assessing how colonial hierarchies and global economic systems have shaped contemporary gendered labor divisions and reinforced global and regional inequalities.
By integrating rural sub-Saharan African gender perspectives, this research seeks to highlight the specific challenges and opportunities facing women in these regions, providing a more nuanced understanding of global gender disparities.