IL302

1. Gender and Development

2. Introduction
Gender is a development issue.
Different concepts:
• women in development (WID)
• women and development (WAD)
• gender and development (GAD)
• the efficiency approach
• the empowerment approach
• gender and the environment (GED)
• mainstreaming gender equality

3. Gender Issues
 Gender and education
 Resources
 Work and women
 Maternal mortality ratio
 Declining sex ratio
 Gendered patterns of migration
 Gender and violence

4. Gender is a social construct
 In contrast to sex, which refers to biological
differences between males and females,
gender is a social or cultural construct of the
differences between women and men.
 People are born female or male, but they
acquire a gender identity that shapes socially
acceptable activities for women and men,
their relations, and their relative power.

5. Gender and education
 Gender differences in education exist in many
parts of the world
 Education and development
 Reduction in child mortality
 Improvement in nutrition
 Decrease in fertility rates

6. Educating Women Reduces National Infant Mortality
Infant mortality (deaths per 1,000 births)
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Sub-Saharan Africa
50 70 90 110
Secondary education (females per 100 males)
South Asia
Middle East
& North Africa
Latin America
& Caribbean
East Asia
OECD

7. Educated Women Have Healthier Children
250
200
150
100
50
0
Africa Latin America &
Caribbean
Asia
0 Yrs.
4-6 Yrs.
7+ Yrs.
Under 5 mortality per 1,000
Years of education of mother
(Average of household survey results)

8. IInnddiiaa KKeennyyaa
Calculation of Net Social Benefits to Girls’ Education
for Representative Countries
Cost of one additional year of primary schooling
for 1,000 women $32,000 $58,000
Benefits of an additional year of schooling:
CChhiilldd mmoorrttaalliittyy rreedduucceedd bbyy:: 7.5% 7.5%
Alternative cost per child death $750 $750
Total value of averted deaths $32,000 $36,000
BBiirrtthhss aavveerrtteedd:
Percentage reduction in total fertility rate 7.5% 7.5%
Alternative cost per birth averted $250 $300
Value of averted births $75,000 $98,000
MMaatteerrnnaall mmoorrttaalliittyy::
Maternal deaths averted 2 2
Alternative cost per averted maternal death $1,500 $1,500
Value of averted maternal deaths 2,300 2,600
Discounted social benefits (15 years, 5%) $52,000 $66,000

9. Resources
 Women have poor command over land, information
and financial resources.
 In South-east Asia female resource possession is low
and female autonomy is very low.
 In developing countries women rarely possess land
 Female headed households
 Female headed enterprises

10. Declining sex-ratio
 There are at least 60 to 100 million missing
women.
 Female infanticide and sex-selective foeticide
 Declining child sex-ratios
 Relation of declining sex-ratios to the
population policies and son preference
 Example

11. Where is there anti-girl discrimination and a
resulting shortage of girls?
 East Asia: China, Taiwan, South Korea
 South Asia: India, Nepal, Pakistan
 Not in most Muslim countries of Arab Middle East,
North Africa, Southeast Asia, or Central Asia.
 Not in most of Latin America, Africa, Middle East,
Less Developed, or Least Developed Countries.
 Not in Europe, North America, Russia.
 Only certain cultures have such strong traditional
anti-daughter bias that is now exacerbated by
declining and low fertility, leading to sex-selective
abortion and/or excess mortality of daughters.

12. Maternal Mortality Ratio(MMR)
 MMR measures the number of deaths to women per
100,000 lives births due to pregnancy-related
complications,
 400 per 100,000 live births globally in 2000.
 By region, it was highest in Africa (830), followed by Asia
- excluding Japan (330), Oceania - excluding Australia and
New Zealand (240), Latin America and the Caribbean (190)
and the developed countries (20).
 Worldwide, 13 developing countries accounted for 70 per
cent of all maternal deaths.

13. Work and Women
 Women work considerably longer hours than men in
many countries.
 Division of labor (mostly household job at the
expense of education, leisure and health)
 Common in the absence of adequate infrastructure
for water, energy and transport

14. Participation
 Women still earn less than men in the labor
market
 On average in developed countries, women in
the wage sector earn 77% of what men earn;
in developing countries 73%
 In politics, women continue to be vastly
unrepresentative

15. Equality index

16. Gender inequalities are costly for
development
 Societies that discriminate on the basis of
gender pay a significant price- in more
poverty, slower economic growth, weaker
governance and in lower quality of life.
 Gender inequalities in basic rights, education,
access to productive resources, participation
in public life- all have detrimental impacts on
development

17. Infant and child mortality
 Impact of gender gap in education on infant
and child mortality can be observed in
countries where girls are only half likely to
go to school as boys have 21 more infant
deaths per 1,000 live births than countries
with no gender gap
 Sub-Saharan Africa (under five mortality would
have been 25 percent lower)

18. Nutritional status
 Mothers education, health and income are key
determinants of child nutrition in developing
countries
 Study that observed child malnutrition pattern from 63
countries between 1970 and 1995
 In Brazil, the positive impact on children’s nutritional
indicators of additional income in mothers’ hands is 4-8
times larger than the impact of additional income in fathers’
hands.

19. Economic growth and gender
equality
 Income growth promotes gender equality in the long
run by increasing women’s education, investment in
girls human development and for women to
participate in the labor force.
 Ghana, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Peru, Tanzania, Turkey
and Vietnam
 More investment in rural infrastructure like water,
transportation and fuel eases the burden of females
 Nepal and Pakistan- water and energy infrastructure
 Morocco- pipes water increases girls school attendance

20. Adolescent child bearing
More than 15 million girls aged 15 to 19 give birth
each year.
Motherhood at a very young age entails
complications during pregnancy and delivery
and a risk of maternal death that is much
greater than average.
The children of young mothers have higher levels of
morbidity and mortality.
Early child-bearing continues to be an impediment
to improvements in the educational, economic
and social status of women in all parts of the
world.

21. Gender and violence
 Sexual and gender-based violence, including
physical and psychological abuse, trafficking
in women and girls, and other forms of abuse
and sexual exploitation place girls and women
at high risk of physical and mental trauma,
disease and unwanted pregnancy. Such
situations often deter women from using
health and other services.

22. Gender and development
All societies have established a clear-cut division of labor by
sex, although what is considered a male or female task varies
cross-culturally, implying that there is no natural and fixed
gender division of labor.
Second, research has shown that, in order to comprehend gender
roles in production, we also need to understand gender roles
within the household.
The third fundamental finding is that economic development
has been shown to have a differential impact on men and
women and the impact on women has both positive and
negative results. .

23. Three-part strategy
 Reforming institutions
 Implementing policies for sustained
economic growth and development
 Taking active measures to improve women’s
command of resources and political voice

24. Conclusion
 After three decades of Women in Development and
Gender and Development policies the work of
redressing gender inequalities has only just begun…
 Investing in women will not put an end to poverty
but it will make a critical contribution to improving
household well-being.
 Furthermore, it will help to create the basis for future
generations to make better use of both resource and
opportunities