UNDP links rising debt repayments to loss of tens of millions of women’s jobs
Study of 85 countries finds women’s incomes fall while men’s hold steady, austerity shows up as unpaid care rather than default
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The report, based on data from 85 countries gathered across three decades, shows women in developing countries are disproportionately affected. Photograph: Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images
theguardian.com
Debt servicing in developing countries is increasingly paid for by cutting the kinds of public spending that employ women and replace their work at home, according to new UN Development Programme research cited by The Guardian. Using data from 85 countries over three decades, UNDP concludes that as governments shift more revenue into repayments, women absorb the shock through job losses in public services and rising unpaid care responsibilities.
The numbers in the study are framed as labour-market effects rather than moral appeals. Between the early 2010s and 2022, debt-servicing burdens in the countries studied almost doubled, UNDP says. The organisation estimates the shift has already cost 22 million women’s jobs in the short term, with long-run losses exceeding 38 million. When countries move from a “moderate” to “high” debt-servicing burden measured against exports, women’s income per capita falls by an average 17%, while men’s income per capita is unchanged, according to the analysis.
The mechanism is familiar to finance ministries and creditors alike. Debt repayments are contractual and time-bound; social spending is politically negotiable. When budgets tighten, governments cut education, healthcare and care services—sectors where women are overrepresented as employees, and where households rely on the state to offset care burdens. When those services shrink, women are pushed out of paid work and pulled into unpaid care, leaving the fiscal balance improved on paper while labour and family time are reallocated off-budget.
UNDP administrator Alexander De Croo told the paper that reducing social spending hits women twice: first through employment, then through lost services. Before the US-Israel war with Iran, UNDP notes that 56 countries were already spending more than 10% of government revenue on debt servicing. The conflict is expected to worsen conditions through higher oil, gas and fertiliser prices, alongside global interest-rate pressure and currency volatility—factors that raise import bills and make dollar-denominated debts harder to service.
The report also points to a lender mix that changes how crises are handled. As private investors such as hedge funds play a larger role, debt problems become less about bilateral diplomacy and more about dispersed claims with fewer incentives to offer time, flexibility or politically costly write-downs. At the same time, many developing countries have faced steep cuts in overseas aid, including from the UK, narrowing the set of non-debt financing options.
De Croo suggested creditor countries could tie debt relief to commitments that protect social spending from disproportionate cuts. In practice, that would mean creditors asking for ring-fenced budgets while still demanding repayment schedules that created the cuts in the first place.
The dataset spans 30 years and 85 countries. UNDP’s headline estimate is that tens of millions of women’s jobs can disappear while debt contracts continue to be serviced on time.