Towards Gender Equity in Development

Edited by Siwan Anderson, Lori Beaman, and Jean-Philippe Platteau

WIDER Studies in Development Economics

Includes interdisciplinary contributions from a range of top researchers
Consists of original empirical work that covers a range of countries in the developing world complemented by theoretical perspectives
Explores three clearly defined aspects of gender issues
An open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO licence

Towards Gender Equity in Development

Edited by Siwan Anderson, Lori Beaman, and Jean-Philippe Platteau

WIDER Studies in Development Economics

Description

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.

Towards Gender Equity in Development

Edited by Siwan Anderson, Lori Beaman, and Jean-Philippe Platteau

WIDER Studies in Development Economics

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

Towards Gender Equity in Development

Edited by Siwan Anderson, Lori Beaman, and Jean-Philippe Platteau

WIDER Studies in Development Economics

Author Information

Edited by Siwan Anderson, Professor, Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia, Canada, Lori Beaman, Associate Professor, Northwestern University, USA, and Jean-Philippe Platteau, Professor, University of Namur, Belgium

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.

Contributors:

Emmanuelle Auriol
Jean-Marie Baland
John R. Bowen
Giulia Camilotti
Alba Evelyn Cortez
James Fearon
Ina Ganguli
Xavier Giné
Markus Goldstein
Selim Gulesci
Ricardo Hausmann
Macartan Humphreys
Shareen Joshi
Silvia Ivette Juarez Barrios
Salma Khalid
Nishtha Kochhar
Hans-Peter Kohler
Sylvie Lambert
Sara Lowes
Ghazala Mansuri
Laura McGorman
Ana Maria Munoz Boudet
Nathan Nunn
Lars Ivar Oppedal Berge
Obert Pimhidzai
Nancy Qian
Vijayendra Rao
José Santos Guardado Bautista
Rebecca L. Thornton
Dominique van de Walle
Martina Viarengo
Paola Villar
Jocelyn Viterna
Roberta Ziparo
Debraj Ray