Research

Best and worst states to work in America 2023

Each year, the Best States to Work Index assesses and ranks the U.S. states on labor laws that determine compensation, conditions, and rights for workers. The 2023 report features an important retrospective of the past five years.

Centering Women's Rights Organizations: Evaluative Research on Oxfam's COVID-19 Response in Colombia, Iraq, and Kenya

The purpose of this research was to understand the broader context of the humanitarian response to COVID-19 from the perspective of women’s rights organizations (WROs) and to understand how well Oxfam has upheld local humanitarian leadership (LHL) commitments in relation to its partnerships with WROs. From the literature, as well as from Oxfam’s experience in Colombia, Iraq, and Kenya, it is evident that WROs have been key figures in the COVID-19 response while also managing acute challenges around lack of recognition, funding, and exclusion from decision-making spaces. Local organizations, including WROs, have continued their work in humanitarian response, shouldering even more as international actors have reduced their participation. By adopting a feminist approach that pays close attention to unequal gender norms, incorporates an intersectional lens, and delves into power dynamics, this study provides a clear assessment on the ways that Oxfam—and other international actors—can better support WROs involved in humanitarian response.

As noted in the three case studies that accompany this synthesis report, WROs provided crucial response activities in ways that were additive to Oxfam’s efforts, such as embedding self-care in their response in Colombia, gender-specific expertise on legal issues in Iraq, and access to urban communities in Kenya. The report also includes several practical though perhaps challenging suggestions on how support of WROs can be better achieved, from including indirect cost recovery for partners to creating more equitable learning exchanges where Oxfam and partners can learn from each other.

Additional practical suggestions no doubt exist, and we recommend that Oxfam and other international actors create space for frank dialogue with their WRO partners to discuss other ways they can be supported. Lastly, it is important to recognize that Oxfam is just one actor in the sector, and several of the recommendations cannot be carried out by Oxfam alone. Changes to better support WROs in the humanitarian sector need to be responded to jointly by a diverse set of actors, ranging from international nongovernmental organizations, United Nations agencies, donors, governments, and others.

US Care Policy Scorecard: Assessing federal unpaid and underpaid care policies in the US

The US Care Policy Scorecard seeks to assess the US care policy environment at the federal level by adapting and implementing the Care Policy Scorecard Framework and Tool in the US context. The US Scorecard looks at 30 federal policy indicators related to both unpaid care and underpaid care work (UUCW). Each policy indicator is measured by an average of 18 assessment criteria with the aim to determine the existence of the policy as well as to evaluate the performance and progress of the policy in relation to its design, implementation, and impact.

The US Care Policy Scorecard demonstrates that federal UUCW policies are severely lacking, and the needs of caregivers and care workers are not being met by federal policies. It is women of color and immigrant women who are most harmed by the US’s failure to fully support working families, caregivers, and care workers. This is a result of a history of policymaking rooted in sexism and racism that makes care work invisible and undervalued. The US receives an aggregate score of 43%, meeting less than half of all possible criteria when all care policy indicators in the US Care Policy Scorecard are examined and aggregated.

In addition to showcasing how each policy indicator and policy area measured scored, the report includes examples of states that have passed care policies in light of absent or weak federal policies, as well as policy recommendations to strengthen the care policy environment in the US.

The US Care Policy Scorecard was developed by graduate students at the Integration Lab in the Keough School of Global Affairs (KSGA) at the University of Notre Dame (ND-i-Lab), Oxfam America, the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), and the National Partnership for Women & Families (NPWF)

Where hard work doesn't pay off

An index of US labor policies compared to peer nations

Market Analysis of Pilot Run Fortified Parboiled Rice in Burkina Faso

This research documents the results of the piloting of an innovative technology with a limited-water fortification parboiling method developed by the University of Arkansas with eleven women rice parboiling cooperatives in Burkina Faso. The technology is easily adaptable to the parboiling method currently used in Burkina Faso (with some modifications), reduces water use and cost of fortificants contributing to food and nutritional security to particularly women and children and promotes economic empowerment of women in Burkina Faso. The paper also synthesizes two research papers on consumer preferences and willingness to pay for fortified rice products in Burkina Faso.

The results suggest that it is technically feasible to produce fortified rice using the limited-water method and brown rice as a feedstock, particularly for iron and zinc, for which the concentration levels were close to the recommended dietary allowance (RDA). From the sensory analysis, although there is nothing particularly wrong with fortified rice, urban and rural consumers preferred conventional and modified parboiled rice; and of all three rice products, consumers were more likely to buy the two rice alternatives rather than fortified rice.

The results from the experimental auctions show that most consumers were willing to pay the same price for fortified rice as for the conventional parboiled rice currently available in the market. Results showed that creating awareness on the benefits of fortified rice had a positive impact on consumers’ willingness to pay for it, and this was seen across all income levels. These results highlight the importance of designing an appropriate marketing campaign/awareness raising to promote the nutritional benefits of fortified rice to increase the consumers’ willingness to pay for it.

This study is unique in that, to our knowledge, fortified rice is not available in Burkina Faso, and therefore there is no information about its technical and market feasibility. The results can be used by the government and private and public sector actors to develop strategies for the adoption of fortified rice as another potentially relevant tool to fight malnutrition in Burkina Faso.

Does Aid to Domestic Revenue Mobilization Support Tax Fairness? A synthesis of Oxfam research

Between 2017 and 2022, Oxfam examined aid to DRM from multiple donors provided to multiple low- and middle-income countries.

This synthesis report seeks to draw lessons across these studies. The key issues examined include tradeoffs between efficiency and effectiveness in generating revenues on the one hand, and equity on the other; whether donors support direct or indirect taxation; the progressivity of instruments supported; whether aid to DRM explicitly links revenues to poverty reduction (health, education, social protection); whether aid supports country ownership; and whether aid explicitly seeks to advance gender equality.