Women and Development

• Field began with the publication in 1970 of the seminal book by Ester Boserup

• Women’s Role in Economic Development

• She discusses changing gender relations as societies move from extensive shifting cultivation to more intensive farming systems

Advocate, practitioner, scholar

• WID began as a policy concern -- advocates wanted to change the policies and practices of development assistance agencies to take women into account

• The practitioners were far ahead of scholars in changing programs so that women figured far more importantly

Boserup

• Illustrated how division of labor between women and men shifted as economic development proceeded

• Gradual change from family production of goods and services to specialized production

• Used to argue that agricultural assistance should reach women as well as men

Changes in the family as development proceeds

• Family production for its own use diminishes and a larger share of goods consumed are produced outside the family in specialized enterprises

• Services that family members produce for one another are taken over by public institutions or specialized enterprises - education, physical protection, health care

Family organization in subsistence economies

• Family head has extensive power over other family members

• Hierarchical organization by age and sex - may have been necessary discipline so that family survived in difficult circumstances

• Usually results in discrimination in favor of dominant groups

Fertility• Need for self-protection is a strong incentive

for rearing large families

• Women of childbearing age are under permanent stress of hard work, pregnancy, or breastfeeding

• Young women and children therefore serve as family investment and providers of social security for the privileged groups of old people

Small family enterprises

• Often an intermediate step between family subsistence production and large capitalist enterprises

• Women may become managers if the new enterprise builds on women’s traditional work -- may be the case in Viet Nam today

• Can liberate women - but also can provide problems

Effects of development on fertility

• Reduction of tasks performed by family means need for labor is reduced

• School-age children make fewer contributions and become more of an economic burden

• Married women may enter labor force• Leads to changes in family relationships• May NOT reduce work burden of women

Women in the labor force

• Only half of women compared to 90% of adult women are reported as economically active in national labor statistics

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WomenMen

Percent of population age 15+ in labor force

Where do women work?

• In many developing countries, women hold less than 25% of formal sector jobs

• They work in the informal economy• Subsistence agriculture• Markets• Cottage industries

• Where their contribution is NOT COUNTED in official statistics

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EmployersUnpaid family workersPaid employees

Percent female of workers

Women earn less than men

• They lack access to high-paying jobs, such as managerial and supervisory positions

• They receive lower pay for comparable jobs.

Women’s Pay

• Women are paid less than men throughout the world, although the gap is somewhat smaller in developed countries.

• Women often compose the bulk of a country’s work force in manufacturing

Pay in manufacturing

• In the US, women in manufacturing earn only 2/3rd s the salary of men.

• The same is true in Kenya

• In Korea, women earn only 1/2 as much as men

Women’s wages as a percentage of men’s wages in nonagricultural employment - 1990

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Percent 92 91 89 86 82 80 76 75 68 60 42

Tanzania

Vietnam

Australia

Sweden

Jordan

France

Germany

USThailand

ChileBangladesh

Women’s Economic Activity and Fertility

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Doesn't work for cashWorks for cash

Women export factory workers- the stereotype

• Mostly young, single, female rural-urban migrants, who are ruthlessly exploited in harsh factory environments where they suffer long hours, poor working conditions, insecure, unhealthy, and unsave jobs, and wages so low that they are not even sufficient to cover individual subsistence