Policies to reduce inequality in the capability to achieve financial independence and security, enjoy dignified and fair work, and recognition of unpaid work and care

Policies in Domain 4 focus on addressing inequalities in the labour market and access to job opportunities, access to, and adequacy of, social security and design aspects of the welfare state more broadly. Policies include improving the design of the tax system, addressing tax avoidance and evasion by high wealth individuals and multinational companies. Social and cultural norms also shape inequalities in financial independence and financial security and policies should tackle harmful norms where present. Any selection of policies should cover those that drive economic advantage as well as disadvantage. For example, including policies related to concentration of wealth as well as policies that address high levels of household debt; or policies to address skewed remuneration structures leading to high pay, as well as policies focused on improving low pay. Barriers to work should also be considered such as norms around the burden of care, ownership of resources and women working inside and outside the home.

Through your application of the MIF you will have identified the main inequalities within this domain and you should use this information along with your analysis of drivers within main driver categories to inform your work on identifying the most effective policies to reduce these inequalities.

Explore the candidate policies by main driver categories in Domain 4.

Policies by main driver categories

To find a selection of candidate policies, click on the main driver categories below.

4.1 Unequal work opportunities

• Policies for economic development and investment programmes and policies that prioritise growth in work opportunities and inclusive growth.
• Policies that address discrimination in employment recruitment, retention and promotion. These include monitoring by an equal opportunities commission, reporting on the profile of those in the top jobs and positions of power, regulation on how jobs can be advertised, regulation on firing and the use of internships which tend to favour those from advantaged family backgrounds.
• Policies that monitor the profile of unemployed workers for signs of discrimination, such as ethnicity, class/caste and disability.
• Policies that address inequalities in the relations and conditions of employment for different groups of workers and across occupations.

4.2 Weak labour market institutions, precarious and informal forms of work and lack of employment protection

• Legislation which protects the right of workers to unionize and strike and policies to promote worker representation on boards and remuneration committees and in company decision-making processes, including particularly women and minorities.
• Policies which support collective bargaining over pay and employment conditions. Adequate minimum wage policies set through collective wage setting agreements or a national minimum wage covering all types of workers. Policies to ensure monitoring of impacts of minimum wage systems and effective enforcement of minimum wages with penalties for non-compliance.
• Policies that support the transition to formality such as changes to enable businesses to register more easily, formal access to finance, skills training or business advice services, a progressive and simplified tax structure that benefits small and micro enterprises and improved labour inspection targeted at formalisation.
• Policies designed to provide protection for informal domestic workers.
• Policies which seek to expand social security coverage for informal workers (and domestic workers).
• Policies related to occupational health and safety, including provisions for workplace inspections, strict compensation policies and criminal penalties for workplace health and safety violations.
• Regulation and policies to tackle forced labour, slavery-like conditions, child labour and exploitation in the workplace.
• Policies that seek to regulate false self-employment and disguised employment practices – for example, those that clearly define employment relations, expand the definition of an employer where necessary, establish presumptions of employee status, remove incentives to disguise an employment relationship and shift the burden of proof of proving the existence or non-existence of an employment relationship from the employee to the employer; regulations that ensure there is proper monitoring and enforcement, as well as high fines for the use of false self-employment contracts.

4.3 Unequal access to good quality, affordable childcare, elderly care and other family support services

• Policies that provide universal or publicly subsidized childcare services, to reduce the burden of unpaid care work on women, enable the less advantaged to work and earn an income and to address gender inequalities.
• Policies that encourage employers to provide or subsidize childcare (tax breaks, voucher schemes etc.) located near workplaces for employees' children.
• Policies that provide affordable and accessible elderly care, social care for children and adults with disabilities, including rehabilitation and respite care to reduce the burden of unpaid care work on women, enable the less advantaged to work and earn an income and to address gender inequalities.

4.4 Harmful social and cultural norms which create employment barriers for certain groups

• Publicly funded educational programmes and public campaigns to promote greater awareness of gender equality and challenge gender-role ideology in relation to the division of domestic duties and care responsibilities.
• Policies that provide paid maternity and paternity leave, protection of women’s rights to return to work after maternity leave; policies that provide for parental leave and other provisions which enable both men and women to work flexibly and part-time to respond to care needs.
• Policies to eliminate racial discrimination in the workplace, these could include the use of quotas and affirmative action policies.
• Employment protection legislation and regulations concerning hiring (including rules favouring disadvantaged groups, conditions for using temporary or fixed-term contracts, training requirements) and hiring (redundancy procedures, mandated pre-notification periods and severance payments etc.).
• Policies to address occupational segregation by gender, class/caste, ethnicity and migrant status.

4.5 Unequal access to productive resources and markets

• Policies to deliver greater investments in agriculture and rural infrastructure especially in marginal, high poverty, territories.
• Policies and programmes aimed at supporting small-holder farmers (particularly women) access appropriate technologies and inputs, improve their knowledge and productivity, access markets, guarantee minimum pricing, and reduce the climate and market risks they face.
• Policies aimed at supporting small and medium sized enterprises including direct support programmes that provide training, access to suitable premises, subsidized finance and support the creation of linkages between firms, and access to markets.
• Policies related to improving land tenure security and regularisation of land titles of smallholders; policies that guarantee women’s rights to land ownership; policies which guarantee the collective territorial rights of indigenous communities.
• Policies related to agricultural sector competitiveness, to avoid and/or appropriately regulate monopolistic agribusinesses.
• Where appropriate, policies should look at the redistribution of land ownership, including possible caps on land sizes and high land value taxation for large (and unused) landholdings.
• Policies that incentivise and promote market linkages with smallholder farmers and small enterprises.

4.6 Skewed remuneration structures and the lack of regulation of high pay

• Policies that promote equal pay and seek to reduce any gender pay gap including: transparency of wage scales within companies, regular publication of firm-level gender pay gap data; quotas in top managerial positions; policies that ensure non-discrimination in recruitment practices.
• Policies to regulate high pay including reforms to wage setting systems for top executives, publishing information on company pay ratios between CEO and median pay, limits on the returns to shareholders, pay ratios for companies’ top executives (eg. no more than 20 times their median employees’ pay), limits on the percentage of CEO pay that consists of share options, linking pay to better measures of performance and curbing bonuses, as well as the regulation and taxation of golden handshakes, severance packages and unearned income perks.
• Policies which promote workers’ ownership of shares in businesses and incentivise business models that prioritise fairer returns.

4.7 Lack of progressivity of tax system and tax avoidance and evasion

• Policies to deliver tax transparency such as publication of anonymised tax records, country-by-country reporting for multinationals; public disclosure of beneficial ownership.
• Redistributive tax policies including increasing marginal tax rates for high earners, effective modes of taxation of high net worth individuals, effective personal income taxation (including of the self-employed), effective corporate income taxation (including for the extractives sector) and specific tax policies related to wealth/assets (eg. taxes on financial transactions, property, capital gains, inheritance taxes, national or global wealth tax such as a ‘billionaire tax’); both policies and enforcement efforts are important.
• Policy reforms to close tax loopholes and adequate resourcing and support for enforcement efforts that address corporate and individual tax avoidance and evasion (including for the extractives sector).
• Policies related to the transparency of ownership of land and property and the taxation of both including: comprehensive (beneficial ownership) registers of land and commercial properties; regulations that oblige obtaining income tax clearances when land above a certain benchmark value is purchased.
• Policies that crackdown on the use of tax havens and corporate tax avoidance. Policies to consider include unitary taxation, improving information exchange between countries on high wealth individuals and multinationals, ensuring disclosure of the actual owners of companies, consider introducing legal offences for intermediaries assisting tax evasion.

4.8 Lack of appropriate universal social protection floors and active labour market programmes

• Policies that address universal social protection floors (social assistance/insurance). Policies could also explore provision of a universal basic income.
• Gender sensitive and universalistic social protection policies that: provide basic income security for children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and those who are unemployed or unable to earn a decent living, through universal child benefits, adequate unemployment benefits and pensions (including equity enhancing, non-contributory public pensions financed out of general revenue). Policies should Include indexation so that these benefits – all cash transfer - rise in line with inflation.
• Active labour market programmes that target those most at risk of low pay and focus on helping workers gain high quality, secure jobs.
• Active labour market programmes targeting long-term unemployed including elements such as counselling, mentoring, referral to specialised support, tailor-made training and job placements, as well as flexible and sustained support through all stages of the programme.
• Policies which secure public employment and paid work to the poorest and socially marginalised (such as public works programmes or rural employment guarantee schemes).
• Asset-based welfare policies, such as matched savings schemes for low income households, lump-sum asset transfers and savings schemes focused on children.

4.9 Lack of adequate coverage of occupational pensions and discriminatory provision

• Policies aimed at increasing coverage and take-up of occupational pensions, for instance auto-enrolment schemes which cover part-time as well as full-time workers, the ability to move pension pots as workers change jobs, improved information on the size of the pension pot required to enjoy a good standard of living in retirement, proper regulation of occupational pension schemes and protection of pension savings when employers run into financial difficulty.
• Policies that cover occupational pension schemes for self-employed and small business owners with flexible saving options.
• Policies that ensure appropriate regulation of occupational pension schemes, their managers and trustees and financial advisers.

4.10 Harmful social and cultural norms that deny financial independence and security to certain groups and promotes it for others

• Publicly funded educational programmes and public campaigns to promote greater awareness of gender equality and challenge gender-role ideology in relation to the division and control of resources within families, inheritance and independence.
• Policies that promote financial education within schools which are designed to break any gender stereotypes with regards to financial competence, financial capability and financial independence.

4.11 Lack of regulation of financial sector; unequal access to banking services, affordable credit and housing loans

• Policies that ensure appropriate regulation of financial service institutions, including short-term, high cost lenders. These include regulation of banks, financial products, financial services, financial advisers, financial intermediaries, remuneration of financial sector workers (including bonuses and share options) and regulation of stock exchange operations. Policies could include reviews of financial regulations to avoid complexity and increase visibility.
• Policies that ensure publically funded, holistic debt counselling services (by public institutions or consumer/welfare associations) are provided with comprehensive geographic coverage to help those indebted to: negotiate restructuring debt and delays in payments where necessary (or agreed reduced payment schemes) with credit card/utility/mortgage and other companies; follow consumer insolvency proceedings; mitigate the consequences of over-indebtedness and avoid increasing indebtedness in the future; review benefit entitlement (including emergency relief).
• Policies to promote greater financial inclusion, ensure access to affordable credit and banking services. These policies may include the provision of basic bank accounts, access to banking services and affordable, clear financial advice.