Poverty Naturalized: Implications for Gender

The article illustrates how philosophical assumptions affect the theory, practice, and results of poverty analysis, to the potential detriment of women and girls. It links the income/consumption approach to poverty with naturalist normative theory, which developed historically from the moral theory of David Hume. It then traces the historical development of naturalist normative theory from Hume to modern utility theory and examines its links with the British empiricist tradition. Finally, it reviews some of the practical consequences for gender and argues that the philosophical baggage of the income/consumption poverty approach may ignore important issues for women and girls, thereby creating significant gender "gaps" in the analysis of deprivation.     

"MISSING WOMEN": REVISITING THE DEBATE

In a series of papers in the late 1980s, Amartya Sen claimed that about 100 million women were "missing," referring to the number of females who had died as a result of unequal access to resources in parts of the developing world. A subsequent debate has refined these estimates using different demographic techniques. In this paper, we review this debate, provide an update on the number of "missing women," and investigate the determinants of current trends in gender bias in mortality. We find that the number of "missing women" has increased in absolute terms, but fallen as a share of the number of women alive. There have been improvements for women's relative survival in most of South Asia and the Middle East, but deteriorations in China. Improving female education and employment opportunities has helped to reduce gender bias, while the increasing recourse to sex-selective abortions has worsened it.     

Accounting for Gender in Asian Economic Growth

Absent from the important debate on the determinants of rapid Asian growth is the role of gender inequality. This paper argues that gender wage inequality has stimulated growth, with Asian economies that disadvantaged women the most growing the fastest from 1975 to 1990. Low female wages have spurred investment and exports by lowering unit labor costs, providing the foreign exchange to purchase capital and intermediate goods which raise productivity and growth rates. These results contrast with recent studies that argue income equality at the household level contributed favorably to Asian growth by reducing political conflict. The divergent findings can be explained by the fact that gender norms and stereotypes that convince women to accept their low status curb labor and political unrest, stimulating investment. The results indicate that which group bears the burden of inequality in the process of economic growth matters.     

Women's Managerial Careers in China in a Period of Reform

This contribution examines the opportunities for and barriers to women's managerial careers in China, drawing on first-hand empirical data and existing literature. It focuses on four groups of managers: managerial leaders in government administration, academics in higher education, entrepreneurs in private and self-employed businesses, and rural women managers. The paper explores the Chinese characteristics of gender inequality in management careers against the current political and economic background. It highlights the low level in both quantity and hierarchy of women in management. The contribution argues that women are discouraged managerial candidates for a number of legislative, social and personal reasons.     

社会性别视角引进公共政策的制定过程

论文在阐述社会性别理念和分析视角的基础上，用系统论的观点，描绘出公共政策制定系统模型；分析了我国公共政策中存在的社会性别缺位所造成的问题，提出了把社会性别视角引进公共政策的制定过程中切入点和建议。     

What happens after working part time? Integration, maintenance or exclusionary transitions in Britain and western Germany

We address the issues raised by Günther Schmid's proposalto develop transitional labour markets, by examining theoreticalexplanations and empirical evidence affecting transitions throughpart-time work. By analysing British and German Household Paneldata, we outline the changing characteristics of part-time employmentand employees in the early 1990s. We show that only a tiny numberof women were able to use part-time work as a bridge back intoa full-time job. A substantial proportion ends up dropping outof employment, especially in Germany. Having previous employmentexperience is more likely to hinder exclusionary transitionpatterns, whereas the presence of more than one child, especiallyin Germany, is associated with dropping out. We conclude byassessing the implication of these findings for both policyreform and theoretical developments.     

Class, gender and marriage

This paper estimates the contributions of differential fecundity, social heterogeneity, assortative matching and search frictions to aggregate marriage behavior in 18th century Quebec. The reduced form estimates show that a simple random matching model of the marriage market, in which there are gains to assortative matching and women may leave the marriage market at a higher rate than men, can explain these data. The estimates also show that the marriage market was segmented by social status.     

Valuing low probability risk: survey and experimental evidence

This study uses a survey question and an economics experiment to elicit the value of a risk mitigation investment. For 93 subjects (48 males and 45 females) the responses to hypothetical questions are compared with a risk mitigation decision that has a salient outcome. We find no gender-differentiated responses to either the maximum accepted price in the economics experiment or hypothetical willingness to pay questions from the survey. In our design, the two procedures generate aggregate measures that were in close agreement, however individual decisions were seldom consistent.     

Management competencies of women business owners

Women owners of small business are known to be better informed about issues relating to starting their own business compared to their male counterparts. Women spend more time conducting market research and have historically spent more time accessing finance because of gender bias within the lending industry. Due to their previous employment history many women have better administrative skills over men which should translate to women having better basic business management knowledge and a higher level of basic business competencies. Research conducted on a sample of 270 business owners found that whereas women rated themselves as more competent than men on a number of issues when they first started their business, they were no more inclined than men to pursue further business skills development or training once they were actively operating their business. Further, both women and men believed that they gained sufficient managerial experience ‘on-the-job’ not to warrant professional assistance in most business competencies.     

Gender differences in financial performance: new empirical evidence

This article provides new empirical evidence on gender differences in self-reported and observed financial performance. Using a quasi-experimental framework, comparing people who live in a matrilineal and a patrilineal environment in India, the results show that no significant gender differences in observed and self-reported performance exist among respondents who belong to the matrilineal culture. In contrast, women who live in a patrilineal environment self-report more often than men that they are not dealing well with economic and financial problems. However, no significant gender differences in observed financial performance are found.