From October 3 to 6, Associate Professor YAMAMOTO Yumiko from the Discovery Program for Global Learners/ Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Okayama University, participated in the Expert Group Meeting for the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) held online. This meeting is part of the preparation for the CSW scheduled to be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from March 11 to 22, 2024. The report of the meeting was recently made public.

The theme of the 68th CSW is "Accelerating the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective." During the meeting, 24 experts reported on the current situation in areas such as "Governance and Institutional Strengthening" and "Financing" and made recommendations to the CSW.

Associate Professor Yamamoto presented in the session on "Economic and Social Policies for the Eradication of Women's Poverty." Despite being a target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), she highlighted the current situation where there has been insufficient reduction in the burden of unpaid care work, such as childcare and long-term care, predominantly shouldered by women. In the rapidly aging economies, particularly in Asia, she pointed out that care workers engaged in nursing, long-term care, and childcare have been underpaid, which has partly led to women's poverty. Job creation and better treatment of care workers would help reduce high unemployment and NEET rates among youth in developing countries. Therefore, she called for increased public spending on the care industry.

Associate Professor Yamamoto will also participate in the onsite and online symposium Why Feminist Economics Now," on December 16, commemorating the publication of "Introduction to Feminist Economics: The Japanese Feminist Perspective" (Yuhikaku), which she co-authored.