This document discusses how gender affects work and the economy. It examines the historical division of labor between men and women, with men typically working outside the home and women responsible for unpaid domestic and care work. It notes that while women's participation in the paid labor force has increased, occupational segregation and discrimination have contributed to lower pay for women. The document also analyzes concepts like the glass ceiling and glass escalator and discusses the impacts of globalization and the feminization of labor. It examines issues like women's access to property and land ownership and how this influences gender relations and women's economic empowerment and independence.

1. 3
.
2
Gender and Economy

2. How does gender affect the type of work we do and the rewards we
receive for our work?
Can you think of some examples of hidden work that is performed
by women and not usually perceived as work?
Just a housewife!!!

3. The invisible work

4. Men as the patriarchal heads of households and breadwinners in the
expanding labour markets of industrial societies
Women con
fi
ned / responsible for the private sphere (household work
and the care and upbringing of children)
Women’s participation in market work and public life - always stressed
Industrial societies - single women participated in market work until
they married and/or had children
Gender division labour ; patterns and causes of occupational
segregation by sex and the role that discrimination and segregation
played in women’s low pay

5. The economics of gender tries to problematise the job segregation
sex in the labour market, its causes and consequences, the pay gap
between women and men and its underlying causes
Francine Blau illustrates the gender pay gap by the examples of
Sweden and the USA (countries with high rates of female labour
force participation, well-quali
fi
ed women and a strong commitment
to anti-discrimination legislation and af
fi
rmative action (USA) or
equal status policies (Sweden)
Based on human capital explanations (gender differences in
quali
fi
cation) and differences in the treatment of otherwise equally
quali
fi
ed male and female workers (labour market discrimination)

6. Measuring the World’s Work
The link between the economic growth of a country or region and the rates of
employment of women (ILO, International Labour Of
fi
ce,
2
0
0
8
)
Organisations like UN and IMF excluded the work women did outside of the
paid labour market; ie informal labour
1
9
9
5
Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women held by UN - began to
reconsider its methods for measuring work and employment
Current usage of economically active persons includes those who are own-
account workers and those who are contributing family workers (ILO,
2
0
0
8
)

7. Globally there are differences in the kinds of economic activity in which
women and men are engaged
Women more in vulnerable employment (United Nations Development
Fund for Women,
2
0
0
5
)
In developing countries
5
0
-
8
0
per cent of non agricultural employment is in
the informal section UNDFW,
2
0
0
5
), making women and their families
vulnerable to falling into or remaining in poverty
Low payment, less likely to have access to basic social services, fall prey to
illness, property loss, disability and death (because they are not of
fi
cially
employed)
Workers have limited options for improving their working conditions or pay

8. Work has become a deeply
gendered institution!!!
What would happen if women around the world demanded to be
paid for the labour they currently do for free?
What would a world in which whoever does the child care and
housework in your family had to be paid for that labour look like?
How would the ways in which we think about work be different?
Family - feminine domain; work - men’s territory — this ideology
makes women’s work invisible

9. Masculinity and Work
An unspoken expectation that is often perceived as de
fi
ning the very
core of a man’s identity ; bigger the pay check, bigger the man
(Gould,
1
9
7
4
, p.
9
9
)
Industrial society - adult men expected to have a job- otherwise
failure of masculinity
Social class identity and masculinity intersect, affecting the
dynamics of family life

10. The Glass Ceiling and the Glass
Escalator
The glass escalator identi
fi
ed by Williams describes the experiences of men when they enter
occupations that are predominantly held by women
Once they are hired for the job they are often tracked into certain areas or specialities in large
part because of gender expectations
Male social workers, nurses, elementary teachers are all tracked toward administrative jobs more
so than their female counterparts regardless of whether they express and actual interest in doing
administrative work
The invisible pressure that men in these occupations face to move upward in their professions
On the glass escalator, men in these speci
fi
c professions have to work extra hard just to seat in
the same place and to resist the pressure from their superiors and coworkers to move up in their
careers

11. Gender Wage-Gap

13. “Gender equality is a core development objective in its own right. It is
also smart economics. Greater gender equality can enhance productivity,
improve development outcomes for the next generation, and make
institutions more representative”. (World Bank,
2
0
1
1
)
Gender inequality is a pressing human issue but also has huge rami
fi
cations for jobs, productivity, GDP growth, and
inequality
Gender wage Gap-The difference between median earnings of men and women relative to median earnings of men
Direct impact on the state’s economy
Women constitute half the of the total population - restricted access to education lowers overall human capital, thereby
harming economic growth
Equal pay - women’s poverty would be reduced by half; grow each economy (OECD employment outlook).
The economic potential of India’s women is not achievable without gender gaps in society being addressed. India has a lower
share of women’s contribution to GDP than the global average of
3
7
percent, and the lowest among all regions in the world.
India’s economy would have the highest relative boost among all regions of the world if its women participated in paid work
in the market economy on a similar basis to men, erasing the current gaps in labour-force participation rates, hours worked,
and representation within each sector (which affects their productivity)

14. Becker’s Discrimination Theory (Becker,
1
9
7
1
) - gender wage gap
occur as a result of employers’ taste of discrimination – employers
are willing to pay over marginal productivity due to their
preferences. Comparison of pro
fi
ts of discriminating and non-
discriminating
fi
rms is in favour of the latter.Thus, decrease of
productivity (slower growth) is one of the main outcome of
discrimination

15. Human Development Report (
2
0
1
5
) - women are estimated to contribute
5
2
percent of global work, men
4
8
percent
But mostly unpaid - affected by economic, social and cultural issues and care work
distributions in the home
Of the
5
9
percent of work that is paid, men’s share is twice that of women (
3
8
percent versus
2
1
percent)
Globally women earn
2
4
percent less than men
In both advanced and developing countries men are over-represented in crafts,
trades, plant and machine operations, and managerial and legislative occupations;
and women in mid-skill occupations such as clerks, service workers and shop and
sales workers
With the wage gaps generally greatest for the highest paid professionals.

16. Domestic care work - contributing towards Human Development
Index
The unpaid care work - about
2
0
-
6
0
percent of GDP
In India unpaid care is estimated at
3
9
percent of GDP
The Global Gender Gap Report (2014) reveals a widespread
perception that women are paid lower wages compared with men
for the same work. Analysing
6
8
th
Round National Sample Survey’s
(NSSO) wage data by occupation for India appears to support this
trend; irrespective of the professional level, women on average get
paid
3
0
percent less than their male counterparts.

17. MC Kinsey Global Institute (MGI,
2
0
1
5
) identi
fi
ed a gender gap in
leadership among Indian women. Only
7
percent of tertiary- educated
women have jobs as senior of
fi
cials compared with
1
4
percent of men.
Women account for only
3
8
percent of all professional technical jobs.
Women constitute just
5
% of the boards of companies in India—at
the
9
,
0
0
0
listed
fi
rms in the country, there are only
4
0
0
women board
members.These
fi
gures may not present a complete picture as
2
0
0
of
them belong to family- owned
fi
rms. So, the number of women who
have actually climbed the ladder is just a sad fraction (Economic
Times,
2
0
1
0
).

18. Glass ceiling on the other hand refers to the fact that despite the
progress women have made into many managerial positions in the
business world, they are still far less likely than men to have jobs
that involve exercising authority over people and resources
How many Indra Nooyi we have???
It is invisible, unbreakable - women and people of colour, Dalits etc
experience
Women’s blocked opportunities to positions of authority often
translate into an inability to achieve a certain level of earnings or to
penetrate certain occupation or types of jobs

19. Property Relations

20. Land belongs to the man, the produce in it to the woman
The fate of Indian rural women
Women’s struggle to own and inherit property; religious principles,
customary rights
The signi
fi
cance of land as property; the gap btw ownership and control
Women’s access to land and housing and the type and strength of women’s
rights to land and housing- serious development issue
If the household breaks down, land is a particularly critical resource for
women
State focus on only employment; no ownership

21. Key concerns
Gender relations and women’s property status
The distinction between ownership and control of property
The distinctiveness of land as property
Meaning of rights in land
Prospects of non-land-based livelihoods

22. Gender, property, and land
Gender relations and a household’s property status (distribution of
property between men and women) ; household property vs
women’s own property
Engels’The origin of the family, private property and the state;
emphasis on women’s economic dependency as a critical
constituent of the material bases of gender oppression
1
. Intra-family gender relations are seen as structured primarily by
two overlapping economic factors; the property status of the
households to which the women belong, and women’s participation
in wage labour;

23. In capitalist societies, gender relations would be hierarchical among the property-
owning families of the bourgeoisie where women did not go out to work and were
economically dependent on men, and egalitarian in propertyless proletarian
families where women were in the labour force.
The ultimate restoration of women to their rightful status, in his view, required
the total abolition of private property (i.e. a move to socialism), the socialization of
housework and childcare, and the full participation of women in the labour force.
Entry into the labour force is not the only way to reduce economic dependency;
independent rights in property would be another, and possibly the more effective
way
Engels missed out the point of Property control - in socialist societies, private
ownership legally abolished, but wealth generating property controls remained
with men only

24. 2
. How do we de
fi
ne a woman’s class? Marxists-woman belong to their
husbands or father’s class; it is dif
fi
cult to characterise their class
position
3
. The link between gender ideology and property - ideological
assumptions about women’s needs, work roles, capabilities, etc leads
to female seclusion, control of women’s mobility and sexual
freedom; those who control wealth-generating property can have
control over principle institutions that shape ideology (education,
religion, media, etc) ; shaping the views in either gender progressive
or gender retrogressive directions; gender ideologies and associated
practices are culturally speci
fi
c, historically variable, and dialectically
linked to property ownership

25. The possible links of women’s property rights with control over women’s
sexuality, marriage practices, and kinship structures;
Engels argued that in propertied households the need to ensure the
legitimacy of heirs would necessitate strict control over women's
sexuality within marriage and provide the logic for monogamy, while
such control would be unnecessary in propertyless families;
here the exercise of control over women's sexuality in essentially
economic-functional terms

26. The signi
fi
cance of land as property- In agrarian economies, land is the most
valued form of property; economic, political and symbolic importance (productive,
wealth creating and livelihood sustaining asset) basis of policy power and social
status
Rights in land - access and control; the relevance of independent legal rights
Prospects for non-land-based livelihoods - manufacturing and service sectors - far
less in comparison to land based activities
Independent rights in arable land for women - i) the welfare argument(access to
economic resources independently of men; women of poor rural households
spend incomes to family than men); ii)The ef
fi
ciency argument (women organising
cultivation and ensuring family subsistence without titles to the land, serving as de
facto household heads); iii) The equality and empowerment arguments (women’s
ability to challenge male oppression within the home and in the wider society)

27. Feminisation of labour force or work-
fi
rst used by Guy Standing of the International Labour Organisation
There has been a rise in female labour force participation and a relative if not absolute fall in men’s
employment, as well as a ‘feminisation’ of many jobs traditionally held by men.
The term ‘feminisation’ implies :
1
) increase in the labour force participation by women across the world,
2
) Relative fall or stagnation of men’s employment
3
) Substitution of men by women in certain jobs traditionally held by men
4
) Flexiblisation of labour where women are expected to work in informal, part time, contractual or home
based activities
5
) Feminisation of working condition for both women and men workers. Initially, informal,
fl
exible and
contractual employment was used to be reserved for women whereas men enjoyed more stable, full-time
employment, sometimes with bene
fi
ts. Over these years more and more, even male workers are subjected to
feminized working conditions.
Feminisation of labour

28. Whether this feminisation of labour is a positive sign of equality or not?
Relevance of the context of globalisation; the world economy
What are the characteristic features of globalisation? Globalisation led to
new international division of labour
Privatisation, increased international trade, trade and investment directed
to economies with less labour cost, less protection and social security,
erosion in the legitimacy of the welfare systems, market deregulation,
decentralisation of wage determination and erosion of employment
security, technological revolution based on micro-electronics transforming
working arrangements with technological-managerial options
Overall impact on the nature of work / labour

29. MNC s of developed countries relocating the labour intensive production
processes to developing countries (low wage areas)
Skill and capital intensive goods vs labour intensive goods
Regular manufacturing jobs for male workers declined
Decline in welfare state bene
fi
ts, lack of income security for the families;
moving more and more men and women to labour market
Conversion of full-time jobs to part-time (hourly wages, can be laid off
instantaneously when not required); no career promotion or prospects,
job training, no employment related bene
fi
ts like paid leave, sick leave,
maternity leave, pension or insurance
Flexible working, work from home

30. For developing countries-export led industrialisation to generate
foreign exchange
Labour intensive manufactured exports; developed countries
shifting production to lower wage economies; cheap labour; Export
processing zones (areas in a country that are exempt from taxations
as well as workers union and environmental regulations)
Plant managers and owners - interested in feminized workforce as
women are socialised to be obedient to males and to work hard
Patriarchal cultures - pay less to women (young single women,
migrated from rural/semi urban areas); less basic pay, overtime,
surrendering paid holidays etc

31. Gender hierarchies are reproduced in workplaces with male owners
Restrictions regarding going to the toilet, sexual harassment, poor
working conditions, long hours of work leading to occupational
diseases
No compensation offered by state or by the employer; cannot
unionise or collectively demand, chances of blacklisting
Women agree to work under such conditions, because they don’t
have better choices outside

32. References
Christina Jonung, Inga Persson (
1
9
9
8
) Women's Work and Wages -Routledge Research
in Gender and Society
Judith Wore (
2
0
0
1
) Encyclopaedia of women and Gender : Sex Similarities and
Differences and the Impact of Society on Gender, Elsevier, USA, pg.
1
1
6
9
-
1
2
0
4
https://www.ilo.org/global/research/global-reports/weso/
2
0
2
0
/lang--en/index.htm
Gould, R. (
1
9
7
4
) Measuring Masculinity by the Size of a Paycheck. In J. Pleck and J.
Sawyer (Eds), Men and Masculinity (pp.
9
6
-
1
0
0
) Englewood Cliffs, NJ : Prentice - Hall.
Williams, C.L (
1
9
9
2
) The Glass Escalor : Hidden advantage for men in the “female”
professions. Social Problems.
3
9
,
2
5
3
-
2
6
7
.
Williams, C.L (
1
9
9
1
) Gender Differences at Work :Women and Men in non-traditional
Occupations. Berkeley : University of California Press

33. USAID (October
2
0
0
6
) Study on Women and Property Rights : Project Best Practices
(Cambridge South Asian Studies) Bina Agarwal - A Field of One's Own_ Gender and
Land Rights in South Asia-Cambridge University Press (
1
9
9
5
)
Shruti Pandey, Property Rights of Indian Women, (https://
www.womenslinkworldwide.org/
fi
les/gjo_article_India_caseC.%
2
0
Masilamani_en.pdf)
Wolszczak-Derlacz, Joanna (
2
0
1
3
) :The impact of gender wage gap on sectoral
economic growth – Cross-country approach, GUT FME Working Paper Series A, No.
6
/
2
0
1
3
(
6
), Gda
ń
sk University of Technology, Faculty of Management and Economics,
Gda
ń
sk
Standing G. (
1
9
9
9
), Global Feminization Through Flexible Labour: A Theme
Revisited,World Development Vol.
2
7
, No.
3
, pp.
5
8
3
-
6
0
2
, International Labour
Organisation, Geneva, Switzerland.

34. Writing Activity
Discuss the relationship between gender and economy.
Explain gender wage gap.
Explain gender division of labour.
Critically analyse how does gender pay gap affect the economy.
Discuss the feminisation of work in the context of globalisation
Explain invisible work