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From A Gender Perspective
| | | | There is now a widespread concern of the need to integrate macroeconomic management and "social policies" and to design macroeconomic policies with a focus on market-based indicators and criteria and then adding non-market-based indicators and criteria. | Gender relations play an important role in the division of labor, the distribution of employment, income, wealth and productive inputs with important macroeconomic implications. | This starting point results in a different vision of the way in which the macro-economy works. | Macro policies influence the distribution of wealth and income or the degree of human and income poverty. Desired social outcomes such as distributive justice, equity, provisioning of needs for all, freedom from poverty and discrimination, social inclusion, development of human capabilities need to become the ultimate goals of policy-making. | The main aim of these policies are to rethink various dimensions of macroeconomic analysis from a perspective that takes into account both gender inequality and the unpaid provision of care in households and communities. | The first research were produced as a special issue of World Development in November 1995. This volume focused on "Gender, Adjustment and Macroeconomics." A second volume, with the theme "Gender, Macroeconomics and Globalization" was published as a special issue of World Development in early summer 2000. | The conceptual starting points for the new gender-aware approaches to macroeconomic analysis can be summarized in three main propositions (Cagatay, Elson and Grown 1995) | Though economic institutions may not be gendered themselves, they bear and transmit gender biases. For instance, ‘free markets’ reflect and reinforce a number of important gender inequalities. | Unpaid work needs to be made visible and the macro-economy redefined to include it. |
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| Nilüfer, Çagatay (1998) “Engendering Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies” (New York: United Nations Development Programme)
Bakker, Isabella (1994) The Strategic Silence: Gender and Economic Policy (London: Zed Press)
Erturk, K. and Çagatay, N. (1995) ”Macro-Economic Consequences of Cyclical and Secular Changes in Feminization: An Experiment at Gendered Macro-modeling” World Development, Vol. 23, No. 11
Benería, Lourdes (1995) ”Toward a Greater Integration of Gender in Economics” World Development , Vol. 23 , no. 11
| | | Macro Modeling for Gender |
Four different approaches can be distinguished in gender-aware macro modeling:
| The first method entails disaggregation of market based activities by gender. In this class of models, the objective is to highlight the macroeconomic implications of the difference in behavior between the two genders. | The second approach involves linking the parameters of the model to the gender structure of labor, money and goods markets and provision of public services, and argues that reducing (or increasing) gender inequality could change the parameters of the model. | The third approach divides the economy into two sectors, productive and reproductive. The former sector comprises the traditional macroeconomic variables while the latter includes unpaid labor, non-monetized goods and services and human resource networks within the reproductive sector. These models could be further developed on the basis of a social accounting matrix and different hypotheses about the linkages between the two sectors could be examined. | The fourth approach consists of using a combination of the approaches outlined above. When needed, women are extracted from the household/subsistence sector and enlist their labor in the cash crop production by a combination of coercion, cooperation and inducement through compensation. Exploring how the transfer of female labor to the cash crop sector affects the output of the household sector, the model shows that in a gender-segregated, low income economy where women shoulder the unpaid work burden, a devaluation-induced export boom may result in nutritional deprivation for women and children.
Limitations to the model : A limitation is that they have not focused sufficiently on greater openness to trade and investment, nor on financial variables.
A further limitation is the availability of operationalizable models calibrated to particular economies which can be used to evaluate the gender and poverty implications of different policy scenarios. |
| Elson, D. (1993) "Gender-Aware Analysis and Development Economics" Journal of International Development, Vol. 5, No. 2.
Walters, Bernard (1995) Engendering macroeconomics: A Reconsideration of Growth Theory, World Development, November, vol.23, no. 11
Erturk., K., and Çagatay, N. (1995) "Macro-economic Consequences of Cyclical and Secular Changes in Feminization: An Experiment at Gendered Macro-modeling” World Development, Vol. 23, No. 11
Razavi, S. (1997) Working towards a More Gender Equitable Macro-economic Agenda. Report of the UNRISD/CPD workshop, Rajendrapur, 26- 8 November 1996
Taylor, V. (1999). Gender Mainstreaming in Development Planning (London: The Commonwealth Secretariat )
Sen,G.(1995) "Alternative Economics from a Gender Perspective" Development, Vol 1.
| | | Engendering macroeconomic frameworks and building capacity within countries to manage globalization and economic transition from the perspective of poor women | UNIFEM devotes special attention to analyzing the gender impact of trade regimes and identifying successful strategies for engendering trade agreements that can expand women's economic opportunities.
Growing awareness - particularly within the women's movement - of the need to mainstream gender in economic policies and planning tools, is contributing to a new emphasis on strengthening understanding of macroeconomics from a gender perspective and promoting women's participation in economic policy and decision-making.
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| Alexander, Patricia & Sally Baden (2000) "Glossary on Macroeconomics from a Gender Perspective”. Prepared by BRIDGE in collaboration with GTZ-German Technical Cooperation BRIDGE Report No. 48. (Brighton: Bridge, IDS)
UNIFEM (2003) Annual Report 2002/03 Working for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality (New York: UNIFEM)
GTZ (1998) Macroeconomic, Gender and the State ( Eschborn : GTZ)
Mackenzie, George A. (1997) The Macroeconomic Impact of Privatization (Washington: IMF)
Barnett, Steven (2000) Evidence on the Fiscal and Macroeconomic Impact of Privatization (Washington: IMF)
| | | Macroeconomic, gender and the state | | under construction |
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