Towards Gender Equity in Development

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.

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.

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 Gine, 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, Jose 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