Women and Work

Instructor: Yana Rodegers 

Course Description:

This graduate-level course examines issues related to women’s paid and unpaid work during a time of rapid integration of world markets. Students will analyze the role of government policy, unions, corporate responsibility, and social movements in raising women's wages, promoting equal opportunity, fighting discrimination in the workplace, and improving working conditions. We will also examine issues related to women’s work that does not pass through the market as women continue to perform most of the unpaid work caring for children and the elderly. Economic, political, and social aspects of women’s working lives will gain our attention, as we examine a host of important issues ranging from the work-family balance, poverty, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, conflict, women in developing countries, and the relationship between women’s employment and child health.

Course Outline:

1. Introduction to Women and Work: Can Women Have it All?
2. Trends in Women’s Labor Market Participation and Status
3. The Glass Ceiling
4. Gender Gaps and Unions
5. Explaining Gender Differences in Earnings and Employment
6. Guest Speaker on Women’s Economic and Social Rights
7. Policies that Support Female Workers: Anti-Discrimination and Sexual Harassment
8. Sexual Orientation Discrimination
9. Women’s Work in Low-Income Countries
10. Labor Standards and Corporate Social Responsibility
11. War and Women’s Work
12. Women’s Reproductive Work and Caring Labor
13. Women’s Employment and Child Health: International Evidence

Download syllabus here

Comment from our editors:

This syllabus is part of the Syllabi collection on International Association for Feminist Economics. This course is suitable for graduate students.