Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the gendered nature of policy design and targeting debates in Zambia, identifying a 'double burden' placed on women who are expected to earn and take care of their families. In this case, cash transfers have failed to challenge existing gender relations and roles in communities.

Paper long abstract:

Approaches to social protection have been accused of being 'gender-blind', with considerations of gender within social policy usually being limited to the inclusion of women as a target group. However, gendered narratives of dependency and deservingness continue to shape debates on welfare and social protection policies. For example, in Latin American countries the focus on motherhood as the basis for welfare provision has served to reproduce traditional roles and social divisions, in which the primary duty of women lies within the family.

This paper examines the targeting debates around social cash transfers in Zambia through a gender lens. My PhD research found a predominant belief that able-bodied people - both male and female - should be working to support themselves and their families. This view seems to subvert the stereotype of women's 'traditional' roles as dependants and caregivers to some extent, but does so in a punitive rather than a transformative way.

While there has been an apparently empowering shift towards increased flexibility in gender divisions in the labour market in Zambia, this has not been accompanied by a change in attitudes to unpaid care work. Caring and homemaking roles continue to have low status and are considered to be 'feminine' work, leading to a 'double burden of labour' for women. By failing to recognise these unequal responsibilities within the household, social protection designs can perpetuate rather than challenge existing gender relations and power structures, including the high expectations placed on women to earn and take care of their families.