What Does the UN Have to Say About Family Policy? Reflections on the ILO, UNICEF, and UN Women

This chapter considers three UN entities with mandates that have particular relevance for family policy: the ILO, UNICEF, and UN Women. Each organization sees family policy through its own lens, shaped by its mandate and institutional culture. While this means path-dependency, there is also learning. While there is no ‘one UN’ approach to family policy, there is considerable cross-fertilization across agencies. The ILO has long engaged with family policy through its standard-setting work, most notably its conventions on maternity protection, which has tended to bypass men’s role in families. Driven by its child-centric mandate, UNICEF’s focus on children, has arguably left out the needs of working parents, especially mothers who are largely seen in their maternal roles. The youngest of the three, UN Women, has expanded the terrain of family policy by centering key feminist concerns, such as domestic violence, but its work on family policy has yet to find a strong programmatic footing. The growing global interest in the care economy, reinforced by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), alongside transformations in gender roles, may account for the recent turn to family policy.