Gender Challenges

Noted economist Bina Agarwal provides gender perspectives on a wide range of academic and policy issues of current importance in this three-volume set of essays written by her over the last three decades. Combining diverse methodologies and an interdisciplinary approach, this collection brings together in one place the author's pioneering work in the areas of agriculture, environment, and property rights. These peer-reviewed essays challenge standard economic analysis and assumptions, unraveling the linkages between gender inequality, social exclusion, property, and development. Volume I examines how modernization of agriculture, introduction of new technologies, and rural innovations affect the position of women in rural families, especially in the context of food distribution and healthcare. Volume II challenges conventional approaches to property and family, and examines the importance of owning property, for women's economic and social well-being, for enhancing their bargaining power and security, and for protecting them against domestic violence. Volume III provides theoretical and conceptual formulations on gender differences in responses to the environment, empirical assessments of such responses, and policy implications.