Social Justice and Gender Equality: Rethinking Development Strategies and Macroeconomic Policies

The contributors to this edited volume explore the effects of various development strategies and associated macroeconomic policies on women’s well-being and progress towards gender equality. Detailed analyses of major UN reports on gender reveal the different approaches to assessing absolute and relative progress for women and the need to take into account the specifics of policy regimes when making such assessments. The book argues that neoliberal policies, especially the liberalization of trade and investment, make it difficult to close gender wage and earnings gaps, and new gender sensitive policies need to be devised. These and other issues are all examined in more detail in several gendered development histories of countries from Latin America and Asia.

Gunseli Berik is Associate Professor of Economics and Gender Studies at the University of Utah. Her recent research focuses on international trade, labor standards and gender wage inequality. She is an Associate Editor of Feminist Economics and a guest editor of the journal’s "Gender, China and the WTO" special issue (2007).

Yana van der Meulen Rodgers is Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. Her research encompasses gender, labor markets, and trade. Dr. Rodgers serves as Associate Editor for Feminist Economics. She received her BA in economics from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Ann Zammit is a development economist who now works independently. Her previous working career included university teaching in the UK and Chile, policy-oriented work for the OECD, OAS and the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), and policy work for the Government of Malta.