This book investigates the barriers to women’s economic empowerment in the Global South. Drawing on evidence from a wide range of countries, the book outlines important lessons and practical solutions for promoting gender equality. Despite global progress in closing gender gaps in education and health, women’s economic empowerment has lagged behind, with little evidence that economic growth promotes gender equality. International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) programme was set up to provide policy lessons, insights, and concrete solutions that could lead to advances in gender equality, particularly on the role of institutions and macroeconomic growth, barriers to labour market access for women, and the impact of women’s care responsibilities. This book showcases rigorous and multi-disciplinary research emerging from this ground-breaking programme, covering topics such as the school-to-work transition, child marriage, unpaid domestic work and childcare, labour market segregation, and the power of social and cultural norms that prevent women from fully participating in better paid sectors of the economy. With a range of rich case studies from Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nepal, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Uganda, this book is perfect for students, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers working on women’s economic empowerment and gender equality in the Global South.

First Published in 2007. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Women have experienced significant changes in various spheres of their lives during the last decades as Bangladesh made economic progress. Yet women’s economic engagement and empowerment are subdued, as they cannot make sufficient choices for themselves. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the economic developments in gender equality in Bangladesh. Through examining women’s participation in the labour force, ownership and control of household assets, use and control of financial assets, and opportunities for entrepreneurship, the authors have made concrete recommendations to overcome challenges that lie ahead for women’s economic empowerment. This book is an important contribution to the knowledge on interventions required by the policy makers and broader stakeholders towards narrowing gender gaps. --Fahmida Khatun, PhD, Executive Director, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Bangladesh The women’s story is central to Bangladesh’s economic and social transformation. There is an urgent need to deepen researched understanding of the multidimensional pathways of women’s economic empowerment and extent of real progress made. Voices to Choices is an important contribution to this story. Surely, the journey of women’s economic empowerment remains a long and challenging one. Realizing the full benefits of new opportunities is often hampered by both new and entrenched insecurities. The task is as much one of empowering women’s agency as of dismantling barriers. The responsibility is as much women’s as society’s. --Hossain Zillur Rahman, PhD, Executive Chairman, Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) This book provides critical insights and is timely, as it outlines how girls and women in Bangladesh have gained more opportunities in labor force participation, control over household and financial assets, as well as greater prospects for entrepreneurship. The findings will greatly contribute to future policy and planning for government and key stakeholders working to advance women’s economic empowerment in the country. --Sabina Faiz Rashid, PhD, Dean and Professor, BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health BRAC University

An analysis of the enormous changes in women's economic lives around the world, from the family to the labour market. Hoffman and Averett examine topics such as the effect of rising women's wages and improved labour market opportunities on marriage, the ways in which more reliable contraception has shaped women's adult lives and careers, and the forces behind the phenomenal rise in women's labour force activity. This fourth edition includes brand new chapters on gender in economics and race and gender in the USA. It incorporates the latest research findings throughout, many of which are featured in helpful call-out boxes, and illustrated with new graphs and figures. This is invaluable reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of economics, development and women's studies. The level of economic analysis is suitable for students with basic economics knowledge. New to this Edition: - New chapters on gender in economics and race and gender in economics - Fully updated with new data, policy examples and a new companion website with lecturer resources - Increased pedagogy, with over 30 new boxes

Women have entered the labor market in unprecedented numbers. Yet these critically needed workers still earn less than men and have fewer opportunities for advancement. This study traces the evolution of the female labor force in America, addressing the issue of gender distinction in the workplace and refuting the notion that women's employment advances were a response to social revolution rather than long-run economic progress. Employing innovative quantitative history methods and new data series on employment, earnings, work experience, discrimination, and hours of work, this study establishes that the present economic status of women evolved gradually over the last two centuries and that past conceptions of women workers persist.

The transformation of women's lives over the past century is among the most significant and far-reaching of social and economic phenomena, affecting not only women but also their partners, children, and indeed nearly every person on the planet. In developed and developing countries alike, women are acquiring more education, marrying later, having fewer children, and spending a far greater amount of their adult lives in the labor force. Yet, because women remain the primary caregivers of children, issues such as work-life balance and the glass ceiling have given rise to critical policy discussions in the developed world. In developing countries, many women lack access to reproductive technology and are often relegated to jobs in the informal sector, where pay is variable and job security is weak. Considerable occupational segregation and stubborn gender pay gaps persist around the world. The Oxford Handbook of Women and the Economy is the first comprehensive collection of scholarly essays to address these issues using the powerful framework of economics. Each chapter, written by an acknowledged expert or team of experts, reviews the key trends, surveys the relevant economic theory, and summarizes and critiques the empirical research literature. By providing a clear-eyed view of what we know, what we do not know, and what the critical unanswered questions are, this Handbook provides an invaluable and wide-ranging examination of the many changes that have occurred in women's economic lives.

The economics profession is belatedly confronting glaring gender inequality. Women are systematically underrepresented throughout the discipline, and those who do embark on careers in economics find themselves undermined in any number of ways. Women in the field report pervasive biases and barriers that hinder full and equal participation—and these obstacles take an even greater toll on women of color. How did economics become such a boys’ club, and what lessons does this history hold for attempts to achieve greater equality? Gender and the Dismal Science is a groundbreaking account of the role of women during the formative years of American economics, from the late nineteenth century into the postwar period. Blending rich historical detail with extensive empirical data, Ann Mari May examines the structural and institutional factors that excluded women, from graduate education to academic publishing to university hiring practices. Drawing on material from the archives of the American Economic Association along with novel data sets, she details the vicissitudes of women in economics, including their success in writing monographs and placing journal articles, their limitations in obtaining academic positions, their marginalization in professional associations, and other hurdles that the professionalization of the discipline placed in their path. May emphasizes the formation of a hierarchical culture of status seeking that stymied women’s participation and shaped what counts as knowledge in the field to the advantage of men. Revealing the historical roots of the homogeneity of economics, this book sheds new light on why biases against women persist today.

How are human capital investments allocated between women and men? What are the returns to investments in women's nutrition, health care, education, mobility, and training? In thirteen wide-ranging and innovative empirical analyses, Investment in Women's Human Capital explores the nature of human capital distributions to women and their effect on outcomes within the family. Section I considers the experiences of high-income countries, examining the limitations of industrialization for the advancement of women; returns to secondary education for women; and state control of women's education and labor market productivity through the design of tax systems and the public subsidy of children. The remaining four sections investigate health, education, household structure and labor markets, and measurement issues in low-income countries, including the effect of technological change on transfers of wealth to and from children in India; women's and men's responses to the costs of medical care in Kenya; the effects of birth order and sex on educational attainment in Taiwan; wage returns to schooling in Indonesia and in Cote d'Ivoire; and the increasing prevalence of female-headed households and the correlates of gender differences in wages in Brazil.

Women and Economics - A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution is a book written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1898. It is considered by many to be her single greatest work, [1] and as with much of Gilman's writing, the book touched a few dominant themes: the transformation of marriage, the family, and the home, with her central argument: "the economic independence and specialization of women as essential to the improvement of marriage, motherhood, domestic industry, and racial improvement."[2]The 1890s were a period of intense political debate and economic challenges, with the Women's Movement seeking the vote and other reforms. Women were "entering the work force in swelling numbers, seeking new opportunities, and shaping new definitions of themselves."[3] It was near the end of this tumultuous decade that Gilman's very popular book emerged

The surprising, often fiercely feminist, always fascinating, yet barely known, history of home economics. The term “home economics” may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken muffins. But common conception obscures the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and businesspeople. And it has something to teach us today. In the surprising, often fiercely feminist and always fascinating The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field’s history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa, from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These women—and they were mostly women—became chemists and marketers, studied nutrition, health, and exercise, tested parachutes, created astronaut food, and took bold steps in childhood development and education. Home economics followed the currents of American culture even as it shaped them. Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by women of color who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics’ women, as they chose to be single, share lives with other women, or try for egalitarian marriages. This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a denigrated subject to its rightful importance, as it reminds us that everyone should learn how to cook a meal, balance their account, and fight for a better world.