Gender responsiveness: Framing, programming, and the limits of transformative social protection in Ethiopia

Gender responsiveness has emerged as a prominent concept in social protection policy, increasingly shaping donor agendas and national strategies. Yet despite widespread usage, we lack well‐defined analytical frameworks that allow for gender‐responsiveness assessments of entire national social protection systems. This article addresses that gap by constructing and applying an analytical framework that integrates gender‐responsive programming features with a framing analysis of the normative assumptions and discursive constructs underpinning social protection design. It applies this two‐dimensional framework to the Ethiopian social protection system, combining document analysis and key informant interviews conducted in early 2022. The article thereby offers a time‐bound structural assessment of the system at a specific point in time. The findings reveal that while Ethiopia exhibits a meaningful range of gender‐responsive programming features, the underlying framing in both policy documents and practitioners’ discourse continues to institutionalize traditional gender roles. Women are cast primarily as mothers and caretakers rather than as autonomous rights‐holders. Economic empowerment goals are systematically reinterpreted as instruments of child and household welfare. This framing limits the system’s transformative potential and may also render gender provisions fiscally precarious. This baseline structural mapping can inform future comparative and longitudinal work on gender and social protection systems in sub‐Saharan Africa.