Gale Summerfield

The Economic Contributions of Amartya Sen

This paper examines the major economic contributions of Amartya Sen. Sens contributions fall into three main areas: a philosophical critique of traditional economic assumptions, an attempt to build a more realistic economic science based on the notion of entitlements and human capabilities, and a long series of practical contributions to welfare economics that follow from the capabilities approach - how to measure poverty and inequality better, how to understand famine and hunger, the importance of gender in economic development, and the differences between economic development and economic growth. The paper concludes with a brief assessment of the significance of Sens work.

The Asian Crisis, Gender, and the International Financial Architecture

This paper begins with an account of the Asian crisis, its creation and management by international financial institutions (the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank), and the gender impact of their stabilization and structural adjustment programs. Next we consider the new debate on reforming the IMF and the World Bank and restructuring the international financial architecture to prevent crises and manage them more effectively. Finally, we consider the gender ramifications of these changes. Since feminists have been absent from this debate, we examine issues essential to the formation of a gender-conscious international financial structure.

Land, Gender, and Food Security

Since 2008, a surge in large-scale land acquisitions, or land grabs, has been taking place in low- and middle-income countries around the globe. This contribution examines the gendered effects of and responses to these deals, drawing on nine studies, which include conceptual framing essays that bring in debates about human rights, studies that draw on previous waves of land acquisitions globally, and case studies that examine the gendered dimensions of land dispossession and loss of common property. Three key insights emerge: the evolving gender and land tenure literature provides valuable information for understanding the likely effects of land deals; some of the land deal issues transcend gender-equity concerns and relate to broader problems of dispossession and loss of livelihoods; and huge gaps remain in our knowledge of gender and land rights that require urgent attention and systematic integration of gender analysis into mainstream research.

China's Transition and Feminist Economics

Abstract Since 1978 China has been undergoing transition from a socialist to a capitalist economy and the opening up to international trade and investment. This process has been accelerated by WTO membership. This article presents an overview of the gendered processes and outcomes associated with Chinas reforms, mainly focusing on the post-1992 period when the pace of reforms accelerated. The imperative for accumulation and efficiency has resulted not only in impressive growth but also in the weakening of land rights for women, disproportionate layoffs for women workers in state enterprises, rising gender disparities in urban and rural wage employment, growing income insecurity, declining access to healthcare, and the adoption of Western/global commodified beauty standards. While jobs are expanding in new sectors and foreign-invested enterprises, these jobs are often associated with poor working conditions. This volume argues for reprioritizing equity and welfare on the policy agenda.

Gender and rural reforms in China: A case study of population control and land rights policies in northern Liaoning

Abstract Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper explores the gender dimensions of population control and land tenure policies in a rural village in Northeast China. Gender bias was explicit in the implementation of both policies in the village between 1980 and the mid-1990s. Since that time, explicit gender bias has been reduced and both policies have stressed market incentives more, reflecting Chinas modernization goals and accession to the WTO. Yet the policies are not gender neutral in their implementation, effects, and interactions. Women remain the target of the eased population policy, and they are more likely to become “landless” at marriage. The policies work together to reinforce traditional and emerging forms of gender bias, though at times they offset each other. They impact womens bargaining power within the home, status in the community, and social security. Together they provide a richer view of the gendered experience of living in the village.

The shadow price of labour in export processing zones. A discussion of the social value of employing women in export processing in Mexico and China

Researchers have recently begun to address methods of doing social cost-benefit analyses of export processing zones. This paper examines the issue of the appropriate shadow price of labour to apply in making a social evaluation of a zone. Conditions in Mexico and China are contrasted to illustrate the problem in current methods, which would lower the social benefits of the maquiladoras in Mexico simply because they have hired women. The paper argues that the absolute level of employment in both countries is an accurate measure of a key benefit of the zones, and that the appropriate shadow price of the labour involved is at or below the market wage regardless of whether the worker is male or female.

Risk, Gender, and Development in the 21st Century

Globalization creates wealth but also financial crises. Although these systemic risks are generated by all participants in the world economy, their costs are disproportionately borne by the poor, especially women, who live in developing nations, with irrevocable damage to their capabilities. Since current reform proposals do not address inequities in the distribution of the costs of financial crises, we suggest changes in the design, implementation, content, and funding of policies that could provide security to women during crises. We argue that our suggestions will not succeed without womens participation in the debate on the reform of international financial architecture.

Creating a Space where Gender Matters: Elinor Ostrom (1933-2012) talks with Ann Mari May and Gale Summerfield

Abstract In 2009, Elinor Ostrom received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for her work, especially on governance of the commons. Trained as a political scientist, Ostrom embraced interdisciplinary research and transdisciplinary collaboration. Ann Mari May and Gale Summerfields interview with Ostrom, conducted in fall 2011, illustrates the relevance of her work to feminist economics as well as her impressive accomplishments as the first woman recipient of the Nobel prize in economics and as a pioneering woman in academia. Ostrom died on June 12, 2012.

Preface to the symposium: Globalizations, transnational migration, and gendered care work

Care of children and the elderly, health care, domestic labor, and other forms of care work are increasingly being done as paid work involving transnational flows of people. Child care workers leave the Philippines to work in Hong Kong, Europe and the United States. Others leave Mexico to work in the US. Health-care providers from India work in the Middle East and those from southern Africa move to the US and EU. Some of the workers, many of them women, comprise part of a chain of caring labor that frequently requires them to find others to watch their own children or elderly parents at lower wages. The aging of the wealthier countries combined with women’s greater labor force participation and the decline in the welfare state has led to rapid growth in demand for elder care that is often filled by women from developing countries. Japan and the US are developing robotics as an alternative that would be exported as well as used domestically, raising issues of de-humanizing care and greater isolation of the elderly. The same processes that increase cross-border supply through the disembodied export of labor in EPZs (export processing zones) or outsourcing of IT (information technology) service work also promote the embodied supply of care work through transnational migration. According to the World Migration Report 2005, about half of the transnational migrants are women (48.6% in 2000). Millions of these women are relocating for work, sometimes accompanying their spouses/partners, but often separated from their families for years. This trend is exacerbated by government policies that promote emigration in order to increase the likelihood of remittances, which are often a key source of foreign exchange earnings as well as redistribution of income from the wealthier countries. Restrictive policies toward immigration, such as those in the US following 9/11, frequently have the paradoxical effect of increasing migration of families, especially among unauthorized immigrants because it is harder to cross the border

Globalization, Labor Markets and Gender: Human Security Challenges from Cross-Border Sourcing in Services

Globalization has transformed labor markets with mixed results. In the more developed countries (MDCs), a ‘risk regime’ has replaced the economic security afforded by mass production, collective bargaining and full-employment macroeconomic policy. As some workers celebrate opportunities created by the dynamic new world, others bemoan the insecurity resulting from flexible labor markets: unemployment, temporary jobs, and an expanding informal economy (Beck 2000). Bhagwati’s optimism about the positive impact of trade on real wages of the unskilled may perhaps resonate with some workers in the United States (US) (2004, p. 126). But American service workers displaced in 2001–03 may only remember that a large percentage of them had not found employment by January 2004 or were re-employed at much lower pay, even with full-time positions (Jensen and Kletzer 2005).