SIGI 2024 Regional Report for Southeast Asia: Time to Care

Picture: OECD

Check out the SIGI 2024 Regional Report for Southeast Asia: Time to Care by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, which explores the specific roles played by the region's complex legal landscape and by the multiple personal status laws governing gender equality.

In the family sphere, Southeast Asia is characterised by the existence of multiple and complex personal status laws in 7 countries out of 11. These laws – statutory or customary, and applicable to specific religious, ethnic or cultural groups within a national jurisdiction – are complex legal instruments that govern family matters, ranging from marriage to guardianship, child custody, spousal maintenance, divorce and succession. At the country level, gender-based discriminatory provisions embedded in personal status laws cement inequalities by establishing unequal rights between men and women in the family sphere but also between women of different groups based on cultural, religious or ethnic affiliation.

More broadly, women and girls in the region continue to face many legal restrictions. This is despite the fact that, between 2019 and 2023, Southeast Asian lawmakers enacted numerous legal reforms and amendments aimed at strengthening and enforcing greater gender equality. The legal restrictions that apply to women and girls range from small gaps in the legislation to more important outright discrimination embedded in the law, such as provisions that establish distinct citizenship rights for women and men. Other restrictions comprise legal frameworks that do not comprehensively protect women and girls from all forms of violence, as well as laws that prevent access to safe abortion under the minimum conditions established by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Care is a key policy area, but most countries of the region remain unprepared for upcoming challenges

The provision of care in Southeast Asia is deeply affected by views on women's and men’s traditional roles. Preferences for care provision by female family members, together with social norms that uphold women’s role as caregivers, lead to care systems that primarily rely on women’s unpaid care work. As for the paid care sector, it is highly feminised but remains small and largely informal, increasing the vulnerabilities of female workers in the sector, such as domestic or migrant workers.

Yet, current demographic, educational and economic trends suggest that Southeast Asia is at a critical juncture. The ageing of the population means that in the short and long terms, the demand for care will rapidly grow. At the same time, rising educational levels and economic development characterised by a sectoral transition towards services will likely increase women’s participation in the labour market and decrease the time they allocate to unpaid care activities. The consequences will be a lower supply of family-based care services and a growing demand for paid formal care services. In this context, most Southeast Asian countries appear unprepared and should take urgent action to finance and steer the creation or expansion of reliable formal care sectors.