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7/30/2009

Gender equality matters for long-term economic growth
Feminist Economics examines the role of gender inequality in economic development and growth

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

While economists have found that low-paid work for women and other gender inequalities often accompany economic growth, new research in the journal Feminist Economics shows that economic growth alone will not elevate overall human well-being. Rather, growth goes further to improve overall human well-being if policies that support gender equality are implemented at the same time.

	DIANA STRASSMANN

In the new special issue of the journal, researchers explore how gender relations influence a country's ability to stimulate economic development, growth and overall human well-being. The new work very carefully considers how macro-policies oriented to stimulate economic growth have unanticipated consequences for households and individuals.

"Countries grow more slowly when fewer women participate in the paid labor force," said Rice University's Diana Strassmann, founder and editor of Feminist Economics. "As a result, policies that enhance women's job opportunities are more effective in increasing growth. But in some countries, rapid growth has been accompanied by increased disparities in men's and women's wages. So it's not enough to get more women working. They also need to get paid more."

Furthermore, it's important to have policies and paid work arrangements that accommodate women's domestic responsibilities and care work, Strassmann said. Otherwise, competition in labor markets is stacked against women, leading to persistent gender disparities in occupational outcomes and wages.

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Discover what Rice has to offer in the study of literature, history, the arts and more She said that as multinational companies outsource in developing countries, they create low-paid work for women but don't provide employment benefits or job security. Feminist Economics research also found that in Pakistan, trade reforms led to gender gaps in infant mortality, literacy and domestic workloads.

"Growth-oriented policies like trade liberalization therefore need to be accompanied by policies to reduce poverty and redistribute income," said Yana van der Meulen Rodgers, a professor at Rutgers University and a guest editor of the special issue. "Policies that might seem advantageous in the short run can limit future growth if they have an adverse effect on women's ability to be well-paid and productive workers."

Guest editor Stephanie Seguino, from the University of Vermont, added, "Policies that seem gender neutral can actually exacerbate gender disparities."

She cited that disproportionate job losses of women during China's market reforms have led to rising overall inequality in urban China. In Senegal, the burden of work on subsistence farming has shifted to women and children as the result of various policies increasing the cost and reducing the profitability of farming.

"Macroeconomic policies influence micro-decisions made in households, such as how domestic responsibilities are divided and who gets access to health care and education," Strassmann said. "The research in our special issue goes beyond effects of macro-policies on economic growth, to explicitly examine the consequences for human well-being and equality."

Before publishing the special issue, Strassmann and the guest editor team presented the transformational research to the United Nations during a workshop last year in the U.N.'s New York headquarters. The issue's authors presented drafts of their papers, received feedback, took questions and discussed their ongoing work with scholars, ambassadors, diplomats and policymakers during the workshop funded by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and co-sponsored by the U.N. Department of Economics and Social Affairs and the U.N. Division for the Advancement of Women.

In addition to Rodgers and Seguino, the special issue was guest-edited by Günseli Berik, of the University of Utah, in collaboration with the journal's Rice-based staff and with the support of Rice University. The special issue includes articles by authors from developing, transitional and industrial countries, such as Kenya, India, China, Mexico and Russia, and various countries in Western Europe and North America.

The issue will be available through the journal's publisher, Routledge, for free online for a limited time at http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g913340821. The print version will be available Aug. 1.

Consistently ranked among top women's studies and economics journals, Feminist Economics is the official journal of the International Association for Feminist Economics. Celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, the journal has attained international recognition for the quality and importance of its scholarship.