FROM THE FIELD: Changing world, changing families

A smiling African woman holds a young child wearing a school backpack at a market in Ghana.

UN Women/Ruth McDowall Women in Makola market in Accra, Ghana, benefit from childcare services. (December 2018)

FROM THE FIELD: Changing world, changing families

25 June 2019 Women

The world is changing rapidly and so are families according to the United Nations gender-focused agency, UN Women.

A family of three and a dog sit on a bench in front of a two-toned wall in a rural Colombian setting. — **UN Women/Ryan Brown** | Cielo Gomez (center) and her family live in Nariño territory, Colombia. She took a loan to buy land.

The agency’s Progress of the World’s Women 2019-2020: Families in a Changing World, says that traditional perception of men as the heads of household is no longer relevant and modern families take many different forms.

Taking that into account, UN Women is urging that laws and policies should reflect that new reality.

Read more here about how families around the world are changing.

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News Tracker: Past Stories on This Issue

A Cambodian woman kisses her partner on the cheek in front of an LGBT pride flag at a UN Women event.

New UN report on families in a changing world puts ‘women’s rights at their core’

25 June 2019

Women

While women’s rights have advanced over the decades, gender inequalities and other fundamental human rights violations within families persist, according to a flagship study released on Tuesday, from the UN’s gender empowerment agency.

A smiling mother holds a birth certificate while a father in a cap holds a newborn baby wrapped in a blue blanket, standing outside a building in Timor.

On International Day of Families, Ban spotlights need for gender equality, children's rights

15 May 2015

It is time to change social norms that support male control over women and reinforce discrimination against vulnerable family members, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today on International Day of Families.