Towards Gender Equity in Development

by Siwan Anderson (Editor), Lori Beaman (Editor), Jean-Philippe Platteau (Editor)

Overview

As a result of widespread mistreatment and overt discrimination, women in the developing world often lack autonomy. Towards Gender Equity in Development brings together leading scholars working on gender issues to explore key sources of female empowerment and discuss the current challenges and opportunities for the future. Exploring three key domains, this book adopts a clear multi-disciplinary approach to present different perspectives from gender-focused economics and social research. It covers marriage and women's relative bargaining position within the household; the options available to women outside of marriage and in the context of their community; and overarching discriminatory laws and cultural norms. It engages with questions of how marriage, divorce, and remarriage practices have evolved and with what effects for women; how female empowerment can benefit from improving options and economic and collective action opportunities; and how the government can act as a lawmaker to contribute to modifying norms and practices that disadvantage women.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780192565068
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	10/18/2018
Series:	WIDER Studies in Development Economics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	440
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Siwan Anderson is a Professor at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Her research focuses on gender and local level political institutions. She is currently associate editor of the Journal of Development Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Globalization and Development. She is a fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). She is a research associate of the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at Berkeley and of the Theoretical Research in Development Economics (ThReD) consortium. Her research has been published in the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the Review of Economic Studies, among others. Lori Beaman is an Associate Professor of Economics at Northwestern University. A development economist working on microeconomic issues, Lori's research interests are centered on two themes: social networks and gender. Her work has evaluated the impact of a political affirmative action program on gender bias in rural India; how social networks affect labour market opportunities among women in Malawi; and how to encourage African farmers to adopt profitable agricultural technologies, particularly women farmers. Her work has been published in Science, the American Economic Review, the Review of Economic Studies, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics among others. After serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali for two years, she received her PhD in Economics in 2007 from Yale University. Jean-Philippe Platteau is a Professor at the University of Namur, Belgium. He is the author of several books, including Islam Instrumentalized: Religion and Politics in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). He has published widely in both development and general economics journals. Most of his work has been concerned with the understanding of institutions in economic development, and the processes of institutional change. The role of informal institutions and the influence of non economic factors and other frontier issues at the interface between economics and sociology have been a central focus of his work. Examples are: family structures, informal insurance and micro-insurance, customs and social norms, religion, and collective action problems.

Table of Contents

• 1: Siwan Anderson, Lori Beaman, and Jean-Philippe Platteau: Introduction
• Part I: Marriage
• 2: Sylvie Lambert, Dominique van de Walle, and Paola Villar: Marital trajectories and women's wellbeing in Senegal
• 3: Rebecca L. Thornton and Hans-Peter Kohler: Making marriages last: trust is good, but credible information is better
• 4: Jean-Marie Baland and Roberta Ziparo: Intra-household bargaining in poor countries
• 5: Selim Gulesci: Forced migration and attitudes towards domestic violence: Evidence from Turkey
• 6: Sara Lowes and Nathan Nunn: Bride price and the wellbeing of women
• Part II: Outside Options
• 7: Lars Ivar Oppedal Berge, Kjetil Bjorvatn, Amina Mohamed Maalim, Vincent Somville, and Bertil Tungodden: Reducing early pregnancy in low-income countries: A literature review and new evidence
• 8: Francisco Campos, Markus Goldstein, Laura McGorman, Ana Maria Munoz Boudet, and Obert Pimhidzai: Breaking the metal ceiling: Female entrepreneurs who succeed in male-dominated sectors
• 9: Ina Ganguli, Ricardo Hausmann, and Martina Viarengo: Career dynamics and gender gaps among employees in the microfinance sector
• 10: James Fearon and Macartan Humphreys: Why do women co-operate more in women's groups?
• 11: Xavier Giné, Salma Khalid, and Ghazala Mansuri: The impact of social mobilization on health service delivery and health outcomes: Evidence from rural Pakistan
• Part III: Laws and Cultural Norms
• 12: Jocelyn Viterna, José Santos Guardado Bautista, Silvia Ivette Juarez Barrios, and Alba Evelyn Cortez: Governance and the reversal of women's rights: The case of abortion in El Salvador
• 13: John R. Bowen: Gender, Islam, and law
• 14: Nancy Qian: The effect of China's One Child Policy on sex selection, family size, and the school enrolment of daughters
• 15: Jean-Philippe Platteau, Giulia Camilotti, and Emmanuelle Auriol: Eradicating women-hurting customs: What role for social engineering?
• 16: Shareen Joshi, Nishtha Kochhar, and Vijayendra Rao: Are caste categories misleading? The relationship between gender and jati in three Indian states
• 17: Siwan Anderson and Debraj Ray: Excess female mortality in Africa