Wilfred Jenks Lecture Series
José Alvarez: The ILO and Gender Equality
This introductory lecture describes how the ILO has sought to equalize the economic stakes between men and women by providing sex-disaggregated data that documents gender inequalities throughout the world and by providing standards, policy frameworks, and technical assistance to address those inequalities.
17 September 2025
It also explains how the ILO expanded its original mandate to accord a high priority to advancing equal workers’ rights. It describes the considerable overlap between the ILO’s gender equality efforts and those pursued under the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), despite differences between those two regimes. After evaluating some of the criticisms directed at these multilateral gender equality efforts, it concludes that the ILO’s efforts continue to have the potential to inspire the transformative changes needed to advance substantive and not just formal equality between men and women.
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José AlvarezHerbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law at New York University Law SchoolJosé E. Alvarez, the Herbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law at New York University Law School and the faculty director of its US-Asia Law Institute.
Selected bibliography and documents
ILO Documents:
- ILO, Technical Guidance Note on Gender-Responsive National Employment Policies: A path for gender equality(2025)
- ILO, Programme to support the transition to the labour market of women on childcare leave (2025)
- ILO, Decent work and the care economy (2024)
- ILO, World Social Protection Report for 2024-26 (2024)
- ILO, Global Wage Report 2024-25: Is wage inequality decreasing globally? (2024)
- ILO, Achieving gender equality at work, International Labour Conference, 111th Session, 2023 (2023)
- ILO, Experiences of violence and harassment at work: A global first survey (2022)
- ILO, The Contribution of Social Dialogue to Gender Equality (Revised 2020)
- ILO, A Quantum Leap for Gender Equality For a Better Future of Work For All (2019)
- George P. Politakis, Tomi Kohiyama, and Thomas Lieby, eds., ILO100 Law for Social Justice (ILO 2019)
- ILO, Action Plan for Gender Equality 2018-21 (2018)
- ILO, ILO Gender Network Handbook (2006)
Other:
- José E. Alvarez and Judith Bauder, Women’s Property Rights Under CEDAW (OUP 2024)
- E. Abena Atnwi, “Women in the World of Work: After Eighty-Six years has the International Labour Organization Done Enough to Promote Equality?” 31 N.C.J. Int’l L. & Com. Reg. 793 (2005-2006)
- Julinda Beqiraj, Introductory Note to Convention Concerning the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the World of Work, 58 International Legal Materials 1167 (2019)
- Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmerman, eds., Women’s ILO. Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender Equity 1919 to Present (Brill 2018)
- Eric Stener Carlson, “The International Labour Organization’s Innovative Approach to Ending Gender-Based Violence and Harassment: Toward a new International Framework for the World of Work,” 33 ABA J. Labor & Employment 2 (2018)
- Valentine M. Moghadam, Suzanne Franzway, and Mary Margaret, Making Globalization Work for Women: The Role of Social Rights and trade Union Leadership (State Univ. NY Press 2011)
- Guy Sinclair, To Reform the World (OUP 2017)
- Sandra Whitworth, “Gender, international relations and the case of the ILO,” 20 Rev. Int’l Studies 389 (1994)
accompanying material of Professor Alvarez's lecture (powerpoint file)
Disclaimer
The Wilfred Jenks Lecture Series is an academic initiative organized by the Office of the Legal Adviser. The views expressed in the lectures and any accompanying material are those of the lecturers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the International Labour Office, the International Labour Organization, or its tripartite constituents.Wilfred Jenks Lecture Series
The Wilfred Jenks Lecture Series is an initiative of the Office of the Legal Adviser of the ILO aimed at sparking academic reflection, disseminating knowledge and raising awareness about the ILO’s mandate and its legal and normative work.