Introduction: making and breaking gender inequalities in work

Gender inequalities persist in work, despite progress in frameworks regulating work and employment relations. This chapter provides an introduction to this volume and its examination of barriers to gender inequality, how these have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis, and how the more inclusive governance of work can advance gender equality. This volume emerges from the 19th World Congress of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA), held in Lund in 2021. This volume, and its interdisciplinary approach and multitude of theories, conceptual frameworks, methodologies, and materials, provides a multifaceted analysis of gender inequalities and innovative ways to promote gender equality. The chapters provide a rich global and comparative outlook on gender equality, and addresses developments in formal and informal economies, in the global North and the global South, and in a variety of industrial relations systems, welfare state models, and labour market sectors. This chapter, as well as the volume as a whole, addresses the themes of ‘Gender inequalities in work’ and ‘Governance of work’.