Political Economies

Citation:

Kabeer, Naila, and Tran Thi Van Anh. 2006. “Globalisation, Gender and Work in the Context of Economic Transition: The Case of Vietnam.” Working Paper 06-3, The International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics, and International Economics, Salt Lake City, UT.

Authors: Naila Kabeer, Tran Thi Van Anh

Abstract:

This paper is concerned with the gender and poverty implications of globalisation in the context of the transition to the market economy in Vietnam. As elsewhere, the export oriented garment industry in Vietnam is a major source of employment for women. Women are also actively engaged in the domestic market, both in the formal state and private sector as well as in the informal economy. The paper uses survey data to compare the characteristics, conditions and preferences of women workers working for global and local markets in order to ascertain who they are, how they might differ and what their jobs mean to them. It finds that garment workers tended to form a distinct category of workers – young, single, with at least secondary education who have recently migrated from the country side. Women working for the local economy were far more heterogeneous and included older residents of the city with high levels of education working for the state as well as a more mixed group of women working in private wage and self employment. The findings suggest that entry into garment work represents an aspect of the diversification strategies of rural households for some women while for others, it constitutes the attempt to become more self-reliant. A higher percentage of garment workers expressed a preference for alternative forms of work than non-garment workers, a reflection of their long hours of work and exploitative working conditions. While public sector employees outside the garment sector expressed the highest levels of satisfaction with their jobs, this was not an option open to all. Instead, young women migrating from the countryside saw garment employment as an opportunity to save and take up self-employment. The paper concludes that until rural unemployment is tackled and alternative jobs made available, a female labour supply will continue to be available for the garment industry, regardless of the conditions which prevail in them. 

Topics: Economies, Poverty, Gender, Globalization, Livelihoods, Political Economies Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Vietnam

Year: 2006

Citation:

Kabeer, Naila. 2009. Women’s Economic Empowerment: Key Issues and Policy Options. Stockholm: SIDA & Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sweden.

Author: Naila Kabeer

Abstract:

The paper discusses the limits to markets as a means of overcoming 'durable inequalities' which reflect long-established power relations and the need for public action by states and civil society to address these underlying causes. The paper sketches out a number of areas where policies could make a difference, including a difference on the terms on which women can participate in, contribute to and benefit from processes of economic growth. They include; building women's human capital and capabilities, redistributing reproductive responsibilities, equalising property rights, mainstream women into the financial system and promoting gender-aware social protection. (SIDA)

Topics: Economies, Gender, Women, Political Economies

Year: 2009

Citation:

Kabeer, Naila. 2008. Mainstreaming Gender and Social Protection in the Informal Economy. New Dehli: Routledge.

Author: Naila Kabeer

Abstract:

In Mainstreaming Gender in Social Protection for the Informal Economy Naila Kabeer explores the gendered dimensions of risk, vulnerability and insecurity and hence the need for a gender perspective in the design of social protection measures. Her emphasis is on the informal economy because that is where the majority of women, and indeed the poor, are to be found while also being where official efforts for social protection are most limited.

The book will enhance understanding of the constraints and barriers that confine women to more poorly remunerated, more casual and more insecure forms of waged and self-employment, and of what this implies for women’s ability to provide for their families and cope with insecurity. Kabeer develops a framework of analysis that integrates gender, life course and livelihoods perspectives in order to explore the interactions between gender inequality, household poverty and labour market forces that help to produce gender-differentiated experiences of risk and vulnerability for the working poor. She then examines and assesses examples of social protection measures – from child allowances to pensions – in order to illustrate the necessity for a gender-analytical approach. She also stresses the importance of an organised voice for vulnerable and marginalised workers.

Finally, the author synthesises the main lessons that emerge out of the discussion and identifies gaps and exclusions in the social protection agenda. (The Commonwealth)

Topics: Economies, Gender, Gender Mainstreaming, Political Economies

Year: 2008

Citation:

Kabeer, Naila. 2008. “Gender, Labour Markets and Poverty: An Overview.” Poverty in Focus. Special Issue on Gender Equality 13: 3–5.

Author: Naila Kabeer

Topics: Economies, Poverty, Gender, Livelihoods, Political Economies

Year: 2008

Citation:

Kabeer, Naila. 2005. “Is Microfinance a ‘Magic Bullet’ for Women’s Empowerment? Analysis of Findings from South Asia.” Economic and Political Weekly 40 (44-45): 4709–18.

Author: Naila Kabeer

Abstract:

Opinions on the impact of microfinance have been divided between those who see it as a “magic bullet” for women’s empowerment and others who are dismissive of its abilities as a cure-all panacea for development. This paper seeks to examine the empirical evidence on the impact of microfinance with respect to poverty reduction and empowerment of poor women.

The author argues that the provision of financial services, like the provision of any development resource, represents a range of possibilities, rather than a predetermined set of outcomes. It notes that which of these possibilities are realised in practice will be influenced by a host of factors, including philosophy that governs their delivery, the extent to which they are tailored to the needs and interests of those they are intended to reach, the nature of the relationships which govern their delivery and the calibre and commitment of the people who are responsible for their delivery.

The paper is specifically interested in the extent to which access to financial services helps poor women address their practical daily needs as well as their strategic gender interests and whether the approach taken makes a difference to these outcomes. It is also suggested that how needs are addressed may be as critical as which needs are addressed in bringing about the larger structural transformation embodied in the idea of strategic gender interests.

The conclusion proposes the need for caution in talking about the impact of microfinance, in general, and the need to talk about the impact the particular organisations have had in particular contexts. However, regardless of the pace and the extent of the change that they bring about, the review in this paper suggests that microfinance offers an important and effective means to achieving change on a number of different fronts, economic, social and perhaps also political. Nevertheless it becomes apparent that access to financial services does not “automatically” empower poor women and their households. An intervention is contingent on context, commitment and capacity if this potential is to become a reality. (Rural Finance Learning Center)

Topics: Economies, Gender, Women, Political Economies Regions: Asia, South Asia

Year: 2005

Citation:

Kabeer, Naila. 2004. “Globalization, Labor Standards, and Women’s Rights: Dilemmas of Collective (In)action in an Interdependent World.” Feminist Economics 10 (1): 3–35. doi:10.1080/1354570042000198227.

Author: Naila Kabeer

Abstract:

This paper challenges the idea that a “social clause” to enforce global labor standards through international trade agreements serves the interests of women export workers in poor countries. Drawing on fieldwork in Bangladesh and empirical studies, the author argues that exploitative as these jobs appear to Western reformers, for many women workers in the South they represent genuine opportunities. Clearly, these women would wish to better their working conditions; yet having no social safety net, and knowing that jobs in the informal economy, their only alternative, offer far worse prospects, women cannot fight for better conditions. Moreover, global efforts to enforce labor standards through trade sanctions may lead to declining employment or to the transfer of jobs to the informal economy. Lacking measures that also address the conditions of workers in this informal economy, demands for “the social clause” will reinforce, and may exacerbate, social inequalities in the labor market.

Topics: Economies, Gender, Women, Globalization, Livelihoods, Political Economies, Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2004

Citation:

Kabeer, Naila. 2004. “Labour Standards, Women’s Rights, Basic Needs: Challenges to Collective Action in a Globalising World.” In Global Tensions. Challenges and Opportunities in the World Economy, edited by Lourdes Beneria and Savitri Bisnath, 143-159. New York: Routledge.

Author: Naila Kabeer

Topics: Economies, Gender, Women, Globalization, Livelihoods, Political Economies

Year: 2004

Citation:

Guérin, Isabelle. 2014. “Juggling with Debt, Social Ties, and Values: The Everyday Use of Microcredit in Rural South India.” Current Anthropology 55 (9): S40-S50. doi:10.1086/675929.

Author: Isabelle Guérin

Abstract:

Drawing on long-term field engagement with microcredit programs in rural northern Tamil Nadu (South India), in this article I examine how this specific form of debt is used, experienced, signified, and interrelated to other forms of debt. I attempt to define debt from an economic and anthropological perspective and to highlight the diversity of values surrounding debt. Debt has a material value and actively contributes to producing social worth, setting debtors and creditors within local systems of social hierarchy, producing or eroding trust, and inserting people into local networks of wealth distribution, extending dependency and patronage ties. Far from being static, the social significance and regulation of debt are continually discussed and negotiated through practices of juggling sources of indebtedness. Yet owing to its multiple forms, debt is not only a powerful force for the reproduction of power relations but also a potential vehicle for the reconfiguration of forms of dependence. Analyzing practices and processes is essential for understanding the reasons for this ambivalence and how it plays out in specific historical contexts for situated subjects.

Topics: Economies, Gender, Women, Political Economies Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2014

Citation:

Radcliffe, Sarah A., Nina Laurie, and Robert Andolina. 2004. “The Transnationalization of Gender and Reimagining Andean Indigenous Development.” Signs 29 (2): 387–416.

Authors: Sarah A. Radcliffe, Nina Laurie, Robert Andolina

Annotation:

Summary:
"This essay aims to advance feminist debates around globalization in a number of directions. By means of a transnational perspective that takes gender into the heart of the analysis the essay challenges the erasure of gender from grand theories of globalization leaving gender difference as merely a local effect of globalization (Freeman 2001). Following path-breaking work we share the feminist view that globalization is inherently gendered and multiply produced by diverse actors in varied times and spaces and that its theorization has often been implicitly masculine. Our definition of transnationalism owes much to feminist work on globalization which stresses the complex topographies of political-economic-social and cultural transformations at interconnected scales (the body the national and international) that comprise "globalization" (Katz 2001; Nagar et al. 2002; Radcliffe Laurie and Andolina 2002). Andean development transnationalism rises to the feminist challenge to move beyond conceptual frameworks that "implicitly construe... global as masculine and local as feminine" (Nagar et al. 2002 1009). Compared with previous globalization analyses that took a decontextualized and institutional focus (see critique in Adam 2002) our essay delves through the national local and bodily scales to trace the impacts of new institutional initiatives such as gender mainstreaming and ethnodevelopment" (Radcliff, Laurie & Andolina 2004, 388-389).

Topics: Development, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Gender, Femininity/ies, Masculinity/ies, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Globalization, Indigenous, Political Economies, Rights Regions: Americas, South America

Year: 2004

Citation:

Gill, Stephen, and Adrienne Roberts. 2011. “Macroeconomic Governance, Gendered Inequality and Global Crises.” In Questioning Financial Governance from a Feminist Perspective, 154–71. New York: Routledge.

Authors: Stephen Gill, Adrienne Roberts

Topics: Economies, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Political Economies

Year: 2011