Table Of Content2
Gender, Development,
and Globalization
Gender, Development, and Globalization is the leading primer on global feminist economics and development.
Lourdes Benería, a pioneer in the field of feminist economics, is joined in this second edition by Günseli
Berik and Maria Floro to update the text to reflect the major theoretical, empirical, and methodological
contributions and global developments in the last decade. Its interdisciplinary investigation remains accessible
to a broad audience interested in an analytical treatment of the impact of globalization processes on
development and well-being in general and on social and gender equality in particular.
The revision will continue to provide a wide-ranging discussion of the strategies and policies that hold the
most promise in promoting equitable and sustainable development. The authors make the case for feminist
economics as a useful framework to address major contemporary global challenges, such as inequalities
between the global South and North as well as within single countries; persistent poverty; and increasing
vulnerability to financial crises, food crises, and climate change. The authors’ approach is grounded in the
intellectual current of feminism and human development, drawing on the capability approach and focused on
the importance of the care economy, increasing pressures faced by women, and the failures of neoliberal
reforms to bring about sustainable development, reduction in poverty, inequality, and vulnerability to
economic crisis.
Lourdes Benería is Professor of City and Regional Planning and former director of the Gender and Global
Change Program and of the Latin American Studies Program at Cornell University, USA. Her work has
focused on gender and development, paid/unpaid work, globalization, labor markets, and structural
adjustment policies, particularly in Latin America.
Günseli Berik is Professor of Economics at the University of Utah, USA. Her research and teaching is in the
fields of development economics, gender and development, feminist economics, and labor economics. Berik is
co-editor of the journal Feminist Economics.
Maria S. Floro is Professor of Economics and co-director of the Program on Gender Analysis in Economics
at American University. Her publications include Credit Markets and the New Institutional Economics, Women’s
Work in the World Economy, and articles on time allocation, unpaid work, finance, informal employment,
vulnerability, and poverty.
3
Gender, Development,
and Globalization
Economics as if
All People Mattered
Second Edition
Lourdes Benería
Günseli Berik,
and Maria S. Floro
4
First edition published 2003
by Routledge
First published 2016
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Taylor & Francis
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Benería, Lourdes.
Gender, development, and globalization: economics as if all people
mattered / Lourdes Benería, Günseli Berik, and Maria Floro.
pages cm
Earlier edition published in 2003.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Feminist economics. 2. Women in development. 3. Globalization.
4. Economic development—Social aspects. I. Berik, Günseli.
II. Floro, Maria. III. Title.
HQ1381.B46 2015
305.42—dc23
2014045153
ISBN: 978-0-415-53748-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-53749-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-10793-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Minion Pro
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK
5
To our sons and daughters who are inheriting a difficult and unequal world, hoping that their actions will
contribute to the huge task of constructing just societies and a sustainable Earth.
6
“This new edition of a book that has already proved invaluable for those interested in gender and globalization
from a development perspective will be on interest to an even wider audience. It provides an overview of the
impact of globalization on gender relations in different regions of the world, expanded and updated to
consider recent financial crisis. It synthesises the key contributions of feminist analysis in the field of
economics, exposing both stated and hidden assumptions through which it is able to construct a world that is
apparently free of injustice. And it reminds us that the politics of redistribution must be combined with the
politics of recognition in feminist efforts to create a more just and sustainable international order.”
—Naila Kabeer, London School of Economics and Political Science
“Lourdes Benería, Günseli Berik and Maria Floro provide an indispensable compendium of the research on
gender and development and a comprehensive road map to feminist economics thinking today. The authors
unmask the neoliberal, market-driven policy agenda that has dominated development policy for decades and
offer feminist, people-driven alternatives that promote democracy, economic well being and ecologically
sustainable development.”
—Randy Albelda, Professor of Economics, author of
Economics and Feminism: Disturbances in the Field
“Drawing on the latest thinking in feminist economics, this book provides a powerful critique of neoliberal
globalization as well as of the way gender has been mainstreamed in development policy. It is the ideal text for
a course in gender and development, a provocative complementary reading for courses in development studies
more generally, and pivotal to all those concerned with building a more gender equitable society.”
—Carmen Diana Deere, Distinguished Professor of Latin American Studies and Food & Resource Economics,
University of Florida
“Gender, Development, and Globalization is a remarkable book. It encompasses and highlights the best of
innovative thinking in the field of economics. Policymakers will benefit from novel framework for promoting
human well-being. The authors go well beyond the boundaries of traditional economics to consider care work,
the environment, and the challenges posed by class, gender and race inequality. This revised edition could not
be more timely, in a world in which so many are seeking new ideas on how to understand and address
problems of growing inequality, tendencies to economic stagnation, and intergroup conflict.”
—Stephanie Seguino, University of Vermont
“Gender, Development, and Globalization is an excellent introduction to critical feminist analysis of the
changing patterns of global employment, wealth, and well-being. Particularly concerned with the state of the
world’s workers, and among them, the most disadvantaged, it makes strong contributions to pressing debates
about inequality, neoliberalism, unpaid labor, and the goals and design of development policy.”
—Julie A. Nelson, University of Massachusetts, Boston
“This book is a very rich and up-to-date source for teaching in the areas of globalisation and gender and
development. Its theories range from the recognition of women’s paid and unpaid economic roles in the 1980s
to the human rights based framework developed in response to an instrumental policy approach to the MDGs
7
in the new millennium. In particular, the book signals a new developmentalism in which heterodox economics
engages with feminism and in which social movements push an agenda based on social solidarity practices
across the world.”
—Irene van Staveren, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam
Praise for the Previous Edition:
“Lourdes Beneria is one of the leaders of thought on gender economics as well as development studies. In this
wonderfully interesting book, Beneria discusses and critically assesses the recent trends in the analysis of
gender and development issues. It is an accessible and very engaging account and enlightens both the fields as
well as the challenges of globalization in the contemporary world.”
—Amartya Sen, author of Development As Freedom and Poverty and Famines
“Behold ‘Davos Man,’ symbol of the international elite that meets regularly in luxurious fortresses to advance
its global interests. This book strips off his gilded three-piece suit to reveal a lifeless, brittle piece of molded
plastic. Lourdes Beneria’s feminist deconstruction of mainstream economics urges us to look in new directions
toward a more generous, sustainable, and democratic model of global development.”
—Nancy Folbre, author of The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values
“Beneria’s ideas about what to do if we agree that ‘we cannot continue today on these lines’ offer a positive
sense that another way of thinking, at least, is already possible . . . Informative reviews of 1) the history of
feminist influences on the field of economics, 2) the dominant ideas shaping development thinking during the
late 20th Century and 3) the literature on labor dimensions of globalization and industrial restructuring make
this book additionally useful as a reference.”
—Journal of Planning Education and Research, Gwen Urey
8
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1
Gender and Development: A Historical Overview
Introduction
In the Beginning There Was WID …
Institutionalization of WID: The UN, CEDAW, and the Equity Agenda
From WID to WAD to GAD
The Challenges from Postmodernism and Women of the Global South
The Rise and Rise of Neoliberal Policies
Feminist Critiques of Neoliberal Policies
The Case of WDR 2012
The Capabilities Approach and Human Development
Alternative Frameworks of Well-being Require Alternative Measures
The Human Rights Approach: Economic and Social Rights
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 2
The Study of Women and Gender in Economics
Introduction
Gender and Economic Analysis: A History
Neoclassical Approach
Marxian Approach
9
Institutional Economics
Feminist Economics: A Critique of the Mainstream
Critique of Homo Economicus
The Rhetoric of Economics
What Are We All Striving For?
What is Economics?
How Do We Know What We Know?
A Methodological Convergence
Gender as a Central Category of Economic Analysis
The Economy as Constituted by Provisioning Activities
Human Well-being as the Central Measure of Economic Success
Human Agency is Important
Ethical Judgments are Integral to Economic Analysis
Intersectional Analysis
Gender Inequalities in Provisioning Activities
Wage Labor
Beyond Wage Labor
Asset Ownership, Credit, and Risk
The Dynamics of the Household
Macroeconomic Policies, Provisioning, and Well-being
Critique of Neoliberal Macroeconomic Policies
Alternative Macroeconomic Policies
Feminist Ecological Economics
Conclusions: Towards a More Inclusive Economics
Notes
Chapter 3
Markets, Globalization, and Gender
Introduction
The Rise and Consolidation of Neoliberalism
Economics and the Davos Man
10
