Gender and Development

Course Description

This lecture course, which will be taught in English, will deal with gender issues in developing countries. After providing an overview of the gender differences in various aspects of welfare and economic life, the course will then tackle a number of specific issues. Among them are issues in the measurement of gender inequality, causes and effects of gender inequality in education, labor force participation, and earnings, the causes and extent of gender inequality in mortality, and issues relating to household production, fertility, and intra-household resource allocation.

1. Introduction and Overview

• Why worry about gender issues in development: instrumental versus intrinsic concerns
• Gender differences across the developing world: an overview
• Aspects of gender inequality
• Regional differences in gender inequality
• Trends in gender inequality

2. Measuring gender differences

• Gender-disaggregated vs. gender-sensitive indicators
• Household versus individual indicators
• UNDPs gender-related indices
• Women and poverty in developing countries

3. Valuing Women’s Work

• Market and non-market production
• Biases in income accounting
• Approaches to measuring non-market work
• Time use issues

4. Modelling household decision-making

• The household as an economic unit
• Approaches to modelling household decisions: unitary versus bargaining approaches -fertility decisions
• Investment models versus bargaining models
• Time allocation decisions
• Causes of the sexual division of labor

5. Modelling the consequences of gender bias

• Optimality of sexual division of labor?
• Distortion imposed by gender bias in education and employment
• Externalities of gender gaps: fertility, health, education, and spending decisions

6. Gender Bias in Education: Causes and Consequences

• Levels and trends of gender gaps in education
• Empirical approaches to analysing causes 
• Modelling causes and consequences
• Empirical approaches to analysing consequences 

7. Gender Inequality in Labour Force Participation

• Causes of gender gaps in employment
• The Feminization U hypothesis and its critics
• Consequences of gender gaps in employment
• Gender gaps in pay
• Feminization of the Labour Force?

8. Gender Inequality and Health and Mortality

• Differences in health needs by gender
• Differences in health access and use by gender
• Analysing differences in health outcomes by gender
• The missing women problem
• The Oster controversy
• Causes of gender bias in mortality
• Explaining trends and differentials in gender bias in mortality

9. Bargaining Power and Intrahousehold Decision

• Making: Fertility, Mortality, Education, Spending Patterns
• Determinants of fertility
• Impact of female bargaining power on fertility decisions
• The role of female education

10. Gender Inequality, Governance, and Violence

• Gender and corruption
• Causes and consequences of violence against women

11. Conclusions and Policy-Issues

• The role of norms and practises
• The role of history
• The role of the state to influence gender bias
• Ways to affect female bargaining power
• Ways to affect gender inequality in education, health, and employment

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.