Oxfam released Change the Way You Do Business: Leading with Women Workers’ Voices (March 2025). This paper provides insights on barriers to decent work for women and draws on the experiences and perspectives of women workers in the tea and garment sectors in Kenya, Asia and the U.K.
Human Level’s Take:
- Oxfam reports that women workers are bearing the brunt of companies' demands for low-cost and fast production, resulting in precarious work, low wages and vulnerability to exploitation.
- One key driver of this: unfair purchasing practices, like irregular payments, unstable contracts and inaccurate or changing orders. These practices can put pressure on supplier resources and may end up driving more workers into informal or unstable work — which in turn can increase their vulnerability to poverty, labour exploitation and violence in the workplace.
- This means that companies play a major role in ensuring decent, just work for women. As Oxfam puts it, “Gender inequality is not inevitable but can be tackled by companies making different choices.”
- A transformative approach is needed, with companies ensuring decent work, living wages, rights to unionise and engage in collective bargaining, and workplaces free from violence and harassment, including via effective grievance and remediation mechanisms.
- Oxfam points to several key actions that companies can take to tackle these issues: (1) redress informal and precarious work, including by valuing the cost of decent labour and implementing fair purchasing practices, (2) ensure safe working conditions and tackle sexual and gender-based violence, including through effective, accessible grievance mechanisms, (3) pay living wages throughout the value chain and close gender pay gaps, and (4) pay their fair share of taxes, which are needed for public services, infrastructure and social protection.
Some key takeaways:
- How business practices drive precarious work and vulnerability of women at work: Oxfam reports that informal workers, particularly women, bear the brunt of companies' demands for low-cost and fast production, leading to precarious and exploitative working conditions. Companies can address this by ending the use of unfair purchasing practices. Purchasing practices like irregular payments, inaccurate or changing orders, and lack of stable contracts put pressure on suppliers, leading to exploitation of workers and especially of women. Downward pressure on costs often results in hiring practices that focus on the cheapest labour, targeting workers in poverty and often hiring women on informal, short-term contracts with poor wages and little security. In many Global South economies, the majority of women are employed in informal work, with high rates in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America, particularly in value chains and smallholder farming. Women face systemic discrimination in hiring, job progression, unpaid care work and patriarchal norms, which further push them into vulnerable informal employment. Business practices and harmful gender norms in value chains create power imbalances, making women vulnerable to abuse in the workplace. Evidence shows that women in value chains are more likely to face insecure work, isolated conditions, and temporary contracts, all of which increase their vulnerability to sexual and gender-based violence. Companies are asked to focus efforts on tackling these issues to ensure safe, decent work for women across the value chain. They are also called on to back up their human rights expectations of suppliers with sufficient resources and fair practices that will enable suppliers to put them into action.
- The importance of paying living wages: Oxfam reports data showing that 1 in 10 women, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia, are living in poverty. Many of these women work in global supply chains but still struggle to afford basic necessities. Women, especially women of colour, are more likely to hold low-wage jobs. Women in these jobs earn on average 20% less than men, with additional financial burdens from unpaid care work. Those in industries dominated by women earn 30% less than their male counterparts in male-dominated sectors. Core actions for companies including providing secure contracts and paying living wages, or enabling suppliers to do so. This can help mitigate against sexual and gender-based violence and address mental health risks of women workers. These steps are also key to improving women’s economic situations and reducing exploitation, which can help tackle systemic inequalities and break the cycle of poverty and violence.
- Fair taxes underpin women’s rights and public goods: Companies also have an important role to play in strengthening the ability of governments to ensure social protection, healthcare, education and justice for women, by paying their fair share of taxes. Companies have the potential to contribute significant tax revenue, but Oxfam reports that billions are lost annually due to tax abuse, offshore tax evasion and wasteful tax breaks. Tax policies such as capital gains exemptions, tax holidays and low-tax zones reduce companies’ tax burden at the cost of public goods. A collaborative approach between governments and companies is needed to combat tax abuse. Oxfam calls on multinational companies to stop engaging in tax avoidance strategies and lobbying for tax exemptions that offer little social benefit to the countries in which they operate. It also encourages governments to adopt public financial reporting for transparency and for companies to disclose their tax payments publicly on a voluntary basis in the meantime.
