World Bank Gender and Development Workshop April 2,1998 Prepublication draft Prepared for PREM Week June 1-2 1998 Gender and Development Workshop Preface Mainstreaming gender into operations and research is central to the Bank's mission of promoting sustainable development and poverty reduction. To this end, the Gender Sector Board organized the April 2 Gender and Development Workshop to promote discussion of gender themes and is- sues with internal and external partners. The Workshop included panels and presentations organized around the themes of gender and the household, society, the state, and the economy; and the role of international organizations in promoting gender equality. The following pages summarize the discussions and conclusions. Joanne Salop Director, Operations Policy and Strategy Interim Director, Gender and Development GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP. APRIL 2. 1998 SUMMARY PROCEEDINGS OF Table of Contents Session 1: Gender and Development:The Role of the State ....................................................................................3 Clzair: Masood Alzmed. Vice President and Head of PREM Network ..................................................................... 3 Joseph Stiglit: Senior Vire President and Chief Economist Genderand Development: The Role of the . State ........................................................................................................................................................................4 Discussant: Joanne Salop Director, Operations Policy and Strategy; Interim Director, Gender and Develop- . ment.......................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Session 2: Gender and the Household ...................................................................................................................9 Chuir: Ravi KatlOur (Cornell Universiv) Marjorie McElroy (Duke University)....................................................................................................................... 9 John Hoddinort (International Food Policy Research Institute)............................................................................10 Elizabeth Katz (Columbia University).................................................................................................................... II Discussatlt: Lynn Bennett. Social Developmetlt Sector Unit. South Asia.............................................................13 Discussiotl ............................................................................................................................................................... I 4 Lunch: ......................................................................................................................................................................16 Host: Sven Sandstriirn. Managing Director ........................................................................................................... 16 Ro~trlaqJahan (Columbia Utliversity)Gender and International Institutions...................................................17 Session3: Gender and Society .................................................................................................................................21 Chair: Gloria Davis. Head. Social Developnlent Family Robert Picciotto. Director General. Operatiotls Evaluation Gender and Social Capital....................................21 Jo Beall (London School of Econotnics) Gender and Social Exclusion............................................................... 22 Caroline Moser Environmentallv Sustainable Developnlent. Latin America Gender and Violence................... 24 . Cita Gopal. Africa Technical Human Development Gender. Law. and Society................................................ 26 Discussant: Slzanta Devarajan. Development Research Croup............................................................................27 Discussion ............................................................................................................................................................. 29 Session 4 Gender and the Economy ........................................................................................................................30 Chair: Lj3nSquire. Director. Developnzent Econor~zics Lourdes Betieria. Professor of C i t ~and Regional Plunnitlg. Cortrell UniversityGenderand Economc Restructuring................................................................................................................................................... 30 Guy Standing (It~ternationalLabour Orgarrisation) Transformationof Jobs and Employment.......................31 Marguerite Berger. Chiefi Microenterprise Unit. Inter-American Development Bank Gender in the Informal Economy ......................................................................................................................................... 34 Discussant: Michael Waiton. Director. Poverr)' Reduction ................................................................................... 36 Discussant: Marry Chen (Han'ard ut~iversih) ...................................................................................................... 37 Discussioti ..............................................................................................................................................................39 Session 1: Gender and Development: The Role of the State Chair: Masood Ahmed, Vice President and Head of PREM Network This audience already understands the impor- tance of mainstreaming gender work in the Bank. It is, of course, critical to Bank con- cerns both for efficiency and for equity in the development process. Those of us working to integrate gender in Bank work are moving on three tracks to integrate gender concerns: Expand the scope of work on gender from a few areas, particularly in the social sec- tors, to include country strategy work and so-called nontraditional sectors, such as transport, industry, finance, among others. Masood Ahmed: If we want to wit1 riotjust the Integrate gender work in economic inan- hearts but the minds ofour own operational stafS and c o u t i t ~ecotiomisrs it1 nations iti which we are agement, that is, in country economists' ~ictive.we must be the premier institutionfor M J O ~ ~ work. The Gender Sector Board-a core on gender, demonstrating quality of analysis, em- group of leaders for gender work in the pirical evidence, and ir~tellectualfoundations that Bank-is part of the Poverty Reduction essentially drive the operatiotzal agerlda. and Economic Management (PREM) Network. The Gender Sector Board repre- sents all those parts of the Bank involved steps. We will address gender concerns as in gender work, including other networks they relate to three areas: the household, soci- and the Economic Development Institute ety, and the economy. In each case, we seek to (EDI).We want to make the Gender Sec- answer three questions: tor Board the lead group in pushing the What do we know about the gender di- gender agenda into different parts of the mensions in that domain? Bank's work. What should the Bank do differently at the Strengthen the analytical and intellectual policy or programmatic level, given what ~cnderpinningsof gender work. If we want we do know? to win not just the hearts but the minds of our own operational staff and country What do we still need to learn to be able economists in nations in which we are ac- to design better policies? tive, we must be the premier institution for Joe Stiglitz will open the workshop by sur- work on gender, demonstrating quality of veying relevant issues in addressing gender analysis, empirical evidence, and intel- concerns. He will discuss, in particular, the lectual foundations that essentially drive roles of government in addressing gender is- the operational agenda. sues in the household, society, and economy This workshop will contribute much to the and the Bank in facilitating this role. latter effort-both to identify how far we have come in gender-related work as well as next Tt would be useful as background to get an Joseph Stiglitz, Senior VicePresident and Chief Economist Genderand Development:The Role of the State We are working to mainstream gender in the Bank because it is a key development issue, one with important implications for three as- pects of Bank work: equity,efficiency, and sustainability. Equity. The Bank's primary mission is pov- erty reduction. We know that the incidenceof poverty is far greater than expected from offi- cial poverty rate statistics in developing countries due to intra-household inequalities. Joseph Stiglitz: This workshop approaches these We also know that economic differences issuesfrom the bottom up: people make decisiotzs as breed disadvantages for women. We want to part of households, which exist rvithitl a market econ- understand why that is and what we can do omy, which is part of a broader society. We have to about it. look at the linkages among all three levels,particu- larly at the kinds of interventions that might affect Eficiency. Economists always look for ways getzder issues and the unintended consequences of the to get more growth and more equity at the public policies we pronrote. same time. Several kinds of gender inequali- ties lead to inefficiencies,negatively impact- idea of the magnitude of the problem, some ing the development process. We should fo- numbers that characterize how large some of cus on how fairer treatment of women can the disparitiesare. I was just in Sri Lanka at a result in both increased equity and economic meeting of economists and other policy peo- efficiencyand how we can avoid the tradeoffs ple from throughout South Asia. South Asia we dislike so much. has some of the greatest gender disparitiesin Sustainahility. The sustainability of develop- the world. Young girls have a 30 to 50 percent ment work-long-term economic growth and higher mortality rate and are 30 percent less increasesin income per capita-is in many likely to receive treatment for common ill- cases directly influenced by fertility rates. nesses. The ratio of female-to-male enroll- Many policy decisionscan affect these rates. ment in school is 70percent, and representa- Among them are those that affect the treat- tion in managerial and professional jobs is 2.3 ment of women. percent. This is one region where closing some of these gaps would clearly improve eq- This workshop approaches these issues from uity, efficiency, and sustainablegrowth and the bottom up: people make decisions as part development. of households, which exist within a market economy, which is part of a broader society. We have to look at the linkages among all Gender and the Household three levels, particularly at the kinds of inter- Economists sometimes use models that over ventions that might affect gender issues and time lose their usefulness. It is sometimes the unintended consequences of the public embarrassing to acknowledge and difficult to policies we promote. change these past approaches. A good exam- ple is economists' use of the household as the to men. Men felt they were no longer morally basic unit of economic analysis. Even though obliged to marry a woman if she became a household comprises .a number of members pregnant, because women could now have an who have varying points of view and income abortion; women, however, were more reluc- and consumption levels, the household has tant to do so. As a result, the number of out- still been viewed as a unitary decisionmaker, of-wedlock births and female heads of house- on the assumption that all household members holds increased. seek the most efficient and equitable ap- Another example comes from my own work proaches to household welfare. Twenty years years ago on the impacts of the corporate in- ago, economists began to question this model. come tax, which effectively encourages con- What goes on in the household can affect the sumption within corporations. Because corpo- distribution of income between women and ration executives were predominantly male, men, adults and children, and even boys and they received more of the benefits of this con- girls. sumption, increasing inequality of consump- Dramatic empirical studies have looked at tion between those who worked in the corpo- these issues. In the 1970s, in the United King- rate sector and those who worked in the dom, the government shifted the distribution household sector'. of child allowances from the man to the Yet another example of unintended conse- woman in families; the result was that expen- quences occurred in a recent project in Gam- ditures shifted from personal consumption of bia, which was designed to increase the pro- the man to items important to the woman and ductivity of rice cultivation and women's children. In Brazil, a study showed that in- share of household income. The approach come controlled by the mother had very dif- backfired. By increasing yields, the project ferent outcomes on the health of her children promoted commercialization of rice, which, compared with income controlled by the fa- because it involved money, switched control ther, because the mother invested more money of rice cultivation from women to men. Pro- in child health care. In Bangladesh, whether ductivity went up, but women's share of in- the mother or father in a family borrows come went down. money from the Grameen Bank impacts their sons and daughters differently in terms of What are the implications of these studies for their schooling, nutritional status, and so on. policy? First, if bargaining is a factor in the outcome of a project or policy, it is important Clearly, forces are at work inside the house- to increase outside opportunities for women- hold. A model focusing on bargaining power to education, outside employment, access to within the household can help us to under- reproductive control-in order to improve stand these forces. There are also ways we can their bargaining power in the household. Sec- directly affect the bargaining power of men ond, because how you allocate money-who and women in the family. We can change bar- receives the checks-makes a big difference, gaining power using certain "control levers"; institutional arrangements can greatly affect we can also be aware of the consequences of the impact of an intervention. Third, aspects policies we make for other purposes. of the legal structure also have a great impact One example of the latter is a study by George on bargaining power. This represents one of Akerlof and Janet Yellin on the impact of Roe the important linkages between the household v. Wadein the United States. Their work ex- and society, to which I will now turn. plains the increase in out-of-wedlock births Gender and Society and female heads of households in the 1970s and 1980s. This Supreme Court case essen- Systematic work is needed to understand the tially shifted bargaining power from women broader society to which households belong. The most difficult aspect consists of the social Gender and the Economy and cultural norms that define societies. We In several ways, the gender gap has narrowed. must take those norms into account in our Wage differentials are down. Differences in work. We can also affect them. They're not education for men and women are reduced. At necessarily exogenous, not necessarily a the same time, large gaps remain, particularly given. Norms are pliable and can change very in some regions, for example, large gaps exist fast. At the same time, we should feel nervous in higher education; female mortality and about trying to determine these changes for a morbidity rates exceed those of men; women society, except for, perhaps, in the area of ba- are still employed in lower-paying jobs; fe- sic human rights. male wages in developing countries are typi- As I mentioned before, I believe we can have cally only 60 to 70 percent of male wages; and an impact in redefining the legal environment. women work longer hours and have poorer Many developing societies are now trying to access to a range of productive resources, codify their legal structures. How they go such as credit, labor, and extension services. about it-in terms of inheritance, divorce, and One of the reasons economists have become other laws--can make a big difference for so interested in the economic issues of gender gender concerns. is because it is an area in which we can in- Attaining a level legal playing field is compli- crease both efficiency and equity, that is, re- cated by often competing systems of custom- duce disparities and improve efficiencies. In ary and statutory law in a society. If too large Kenya, for example, they found that it doesn't a gap exists, a set of complications arise. For matter whether a farm is managed by a man or example, the Bank has encouraged land titling a woman, but it does matter how much edu- in many places as a means of collateralization cation a farm manager has. If you increase and getting better credit markets, and credit education for women, the productivity of markets are important for getting the kinds of farms managed by women increases. In Cam- inputs that improve economic efficiency. eroon, farm studies have shown that women Land titling has unintended consequences, allocate more labor to sorghum than rice, be- however. Sometimes customary law dictates cause they control revenue from sorghum but , women control land; land titling, which places don't for rice. Understanding the origins of land ownership in the formal market, often such patterns can help us design interventions results in giving title of that land to men. In to change those customary practices. the process of titling, you may have increased A number of studies show important exter- efficiency, but you have also greatly changed nalities associated with female education. It the distribution of income between men and increases not only the productivity of the women and, as noted above, on expenditures woman, but also that of her children. This fact on children, health, and education. needs to be considered in allocating expendi- Another area receiving increasing attention is tures on education. The relationship of fertil- the issue of violence, particularly against ity rates and education rates is an aspect of the women. Female infanticide, domestic vio- sustainability of development work that has lence, dowry deaths, rape-these are all forms not been studied much by the Bank, but in- of violence that in part result from as well as creasing rates of education appear to reduce exacerbate inequities. Why don't women fertility rates, which helps increase per capita leave violent kinds of relationships? Because income. We need to think more about this they often do not have any outside economic kind of relationship in allocating education opportunities. Violence is one area for which resources. we really need to think about the interactions Gender and the State of legal structures and economic behavior. I'd like to summarize now the issues involved ess. That's why research is so important-to in defining the role of government, the role of understand what is going on and the magni- public policy, and the role of the Bank in gen- tude of the disparities. Analytic work is an der and development. First, how we allocate essential but not the only part of this process. resources-how we transfer income-has For this reason, I have decided to have a Pol- enormous impacts on distributing income in icy Research Report on Gender and Develop- the household, not only between men and ment in Spring 2000. It will explore these women, but between adults and children. We issues-systematize them-to help crystallize have to think explicitly about these factors in an alternative model of development that re- terms of specific policies and interventions as flects the centrality of gender. In addition, well as unintended side effects of policies set with the possibility of a World Conference on for other purposes. Second, we need to iden- Women in the year 2005-the 10th anniver- tify interventions that will change the bar- sary of the Beijing meeting-we need to con- gaining structure, improve equity, and in- sider a World Development Report on gender crease efficiency. Third, we need to think in 2004 to help set the intellectual framework about the unintended consequences of our for a coherent discussion. We could play an policies and projects on the bargaining rela- important role in setting the conference tionship, on the distribution of income be- agenda. tween men and women, on gender equality- 1. Patricia Apps and Joseph Stiglitz. 1979. in other words, on the entire set of gender is- "Individualism, Inequality and Taxation." sues. Unpublished mimeo. We will need to do a lot of persuading in this area, so ideas are an essential part of the proc- issue, but Joe has convinced me that it is right Discussant: Joanne Salop, Director, Opera- to add it as a separate issue. Let's face it: Fer- tions Policy and Strategy; Interim Director, tility is what is unique about gender. That's Gender and Development why gender evolved. That's why it's different A few quick observations: First, let me say from, say, ethnicity, class, or other sources of that Joe Stiglitz went well over his allotted social divisions. time-and I am delighted that he did. To Third, this has indications for the importance have him speaking with such interest about of leveling the playing field. We clearly have the economics of gender is a very clear exam- to help countries reduce the gaps in education, ple of our new approach to mainstreaming. human capital, and so on, not just for their We want him to want talk so much about own sake in terms of equity and efficiency, gender and development. I am, of course, de- but also for this critical area of fertility. In- lighted to have Joe's personal support for a deed, as Joe stressed, fertility decisions are Policy Research Report on gender next year, very much at the core of intrahousehold bar- which we can use as a basis for a World De- gaining-where education empowers women. velopment Report a few years later. I confess that I was always puzzled by the re- Second, on substance, I welcome Joe's focus search finding that in Africa and South Asia, on equity, efficiency, and sustainability. Taken secondary education is the important variable together, they provide a good framework for for fertility. Why secondary education? I now organizing economic thinking about gender. presume it's an empowerment issue: Girls Originally, I had thought that equity and effi- with secondary education have a better seat at ciency adequately covered the sustainability the family management table, including for the most intimate of family decisions. Fourth, Joe's presentation also brings out very nicely the link between legal issues and social bargaining between men and women. This has fundamental consequences for gender work on the law and economics: How does a woman know a man will honor his cornrnit- ment to support his (future) children? How can she assure herself of future support in a society without appropriate laws and good law enforcement? For gender, clearly the legal framework and enforcement mechanisms are central development issues. In looking ahead, Joanne Salop: Getting people like Joe Stiglitz to this has to be an important area of Bank focus. talk about gender and development-and for Joe to even run over his allotted time in doing so- is a Finally, I would like to comment on Joe's ref- very good example of what we mean by main- erence to South Asia. Gender gaps vary dra- streaming. matically with geography across the region. As you go from North to South, for example, portunities focused on the interplay between the gaps decline-meaning the situation be- culture and economics. comes less unfavorable-with this very inter- In closing, let me thank Joe and Masood-and esting geographic typology closely tracking all participants-for their strong support and the cultural influence of the Mogul Empire in commitment to gender equality as central to South Asia. The resulting gender differences the development agenda. We have a long way present a number of interesting and important to go on the gender issue, and we will all need operational challenges as well as research op- to work together to get there. Session 2: Gender and the Household Chair: Ravi Kanbur (Cornell University) Marjorie McElroy (Duke University) You can't imagine what it's like to hear Joe Stiglitz say that the days of the unitary model are over. That was a hard sell twenty years ago. Actually, for many situations, the unitary model may still be useful. So, when do intra- household distributions matter? We have al- ready heard some of the growing evidence. I would also like to refer you to reviews by Strauss and Beall, Strauss and Thomas (1995, 1996), and Haddad, Hoddinott, and Alderman (1997). 1would simply add that it is getting harder to assess or design policies to change household productivity or distribution of in- come without looking at intrahousehold dis- tributions, in particular, those related to intergenerational transfers, fertility decisions, MarjorieMcElroy: It is getting harder to assess or . design policies to change household productivity or education decisions, and child health. distribution of income without looking at intra- We should always keep an eye out for who household distributions, in particular, those related to intergenerational transfers,fertility decisions, controls'what resources in households. In de- education decisions, and child health. veloping countries, this kind of research has been particularly important on nutrition, health, child care, education, and, of course, to decrease that of wives. One might, in fact, fertility. All these aspects of welfare carry view marriage as the institution responsible over to the next generation because they de- for the intergenerational transfer of gender termine who is born, what shape they're in, inequality. and how many resources they command. This discussion leads to deep questions that Many issues in intrahousehold distributions, quickly become interdisciplinary. Laws, cul- however, are only partially understood. How tural norms, and traditions influence marriage do you disentangle the bargaining power of markets. Household inefficiency seems to go spouses from their past work behavior, accu- along with gender inequality, because some- mulation of assets during marriage, and distri- one sacrifices output to protect his or her own bution of assets at the time of marriage? Mar- turf. So, how did these laws, norms, and tra- riage markets determine who marries whom. ditions evolve? You can regard them as soci- The surplus of a marriage is split in some way ety's rules of thumb either on how to operate between the husband and wife. Marriage mar- efficiently, reproduce, and sustain itself or, kets, therefore, set the upper and lower alternatively, on how to preserve gender dis- bounds of intrahousehold distribution of wel- tributions, that is, sacrificing some efficiency fare between husbands and wives; forces that to preserve certain gender inequities. tend to increase the welfare of husbands tend 9 In many societies, women face more limita- Society's rules of thumb can conflict with tions on access to resources and, therefore, sustainability and the reproducibility of the more incomplete markets than men. For ex- social system itself. The point is that the so- ample, women are often limited in transporta- cial system is intimately tied to all household tion options and on participating in certain equality and efficiency decisions. Family dis- markets, entering and enforcing contracts, and tribution of resources, marriage markets, the obtaining credit, finance, and insurance. Some entire legal and social system are intertwined. of the Bank's programs are trying to complete It's certainly a big order to look at all these some of these markets for women, for exam- things, but, when we analyze new problems or ple, in credit. Limitations on access to re- consider new policies, systematic study of sources, however, influence a woman's bar- these factors can help us so we don't miss im- gaining power in the household. portant implications. John Hoddinott (International Food Policy Research Institute) To reinforce what has already been stated, all the evidence tells us that, yes, it does matter who in the household makes decisions. But understanding intrahousehold allocations is not the whole story. Other factors may be at play in how a poor household allocates food among different members. What may appear to be discrimination, for example, in alloca- tions of calories, may be quite rational. For example, some members might engage in la- bor, which, although remunerative, is also John Hoddinott: It is important to determine not only physically demanding. Because cultural con- who is making decisions in a household bur also what ventions circumscribe the ability of women to criteria they are using to make their decisions. We need engage in these activities, men take them on. to understand these criteria in order to develop inter- Providing more calories to men for this pur- ventions that will produce the results we desire. pose may reflect the best way for households to benefit from work opportunities. In fact, resources to women, we need to be sure that these men may not be fully compensated calo- women consider girls' schooling a priority. rically for the extra hard work they do. Research on intrahousehold allocations cer- It is important, therefore, to determine not tainly has implications for policy and project only who is making decisions in a household design. For example, if households perceive but what criteria they are using to make those the cost of educating a girl to be higher than decisions. We need to evaluate those criteria the cost of educating a boy because of the to develop interventions that actually lead to girl's role in household production, one might the results we desire. If, for example, we want promote schooling for girls by offering them to improve girls' schooling by shifting more scholarships to attend school that are not 10 given to boys. The money actually compen- come more profitable, they would take control sates the household for the cost of the girl of its cultivation. participating. A less depressing example comes from Can- One source of angst on current research, how- ada. For years, English common law sup- ever, is how to tease out how a particular so- ported the primacy of the husband in the cial, economic, and legal environment affects household. When a couple divorced, men household decisionmaking. In their particular would retain control over all assets and their environment, households make decisions ac- disposition even if the wife had contributed a cording to a set of rules that might involve great or even major share of the work in- bargaining, efficiency and equity criteria, and volved in gaining those assets. Eventually, in so on. What is going on within society is go- 1975, the provincial government of Ontario ing to have a great bearing on the way house- struck down this aspect of divorce law so that hold interactions take place. the wife would get half of all assets in the event of divorce. Interestingly, statistics show In Gambia, for example, a project at first di- that the rate of suicide for older women- rected measures to irrigate rice at men. Be- those who had the most to lose due to cause women cultivated rice, the project divorce--decreased significantly after 1975. flopped. Ten years later, a similar project tar- geted the women instead. But, unfortunately, These examples illustrate clearly that there are the men responded by actively frustrating the some very real welfare gains associated with objective of the project. In the end, the men- policy and policy changes in intrahousehold who in this society made and changed the allocations. rules-decided that if rice was going to be- Preference heterogeneity. What differ- Elizabeth Katz (Columbia University) What do we know about the gender dimen- sions of intrahousehold resource allocation? A fairly consistent finding, which supports the bargaining approach to household modeling, is that greater access to "extramarital" re- sources enhances women's bargaining power within the household, with important conse- quences for the way that labor time and con- sumption are allocated and for fertility and other household decisions. The precise way in which access to resources matters for house- hold welfare depends on three factors: Exit options. How well can each person do outside the household? Voice.How do household members differ Elizabeth Katz: Whenyou're in thefield, you need in their abilities to exert or express their to look at every single componentfrom a gender per- preferences? spective to$gure out how to address these issues adequately. 11 ences in preferences exist among the peo- a project. We did this in a rural development ple bargaining? project I led in Guatemala that involved land - - tenure regularization, agricultural research In rural settings, resources of particular im- and extension, and a small grants program for portance are land, credit, and off-farm labor local-level productive projects. For each com- market opportunities. More research is needed ponent, the advisor made recommendations to on how access to these resources affects intra- ensure that women received equal access to household resource allocation. Operationally, project resources and benefits. None of this it's important that projects such as land titling was revolutionary, but when you're in the and registration and rural financial and labor field, you need to look at every single compo- market reform integrate gender concerns from nent from a gender perspective to figure out the outset and then carefully monitor the gen- how to address these issues adequately. der-specific impacts during implementation. Another area the Bank can act on is to collect The "New Institutional Economics," which gender-disaggregated baseline data and to in- has yielded significant insights into some of clude gender-specific indicators that can be the unique structures of peasant economies, tracked during project supervision and moni- might provide a useful framework for gender toring. When I worked at the Bank, the analytical work in this area. For example, the Women in Development Unit would rate observation that small farms have lower costs projects only after they were already designed. than large farms in supervising family and Things may have improved since then, but hired labor might be enriched by considering that approach was certainly not sufficient to the role of age and gender hierarchies in address gender goals. structuring this supervision. In a commerciali- zation scheme I studied in Guatemala, wives What do we still need to learn to design better were recruited to work on labor-intensive ex- projects and policies? Our knowledge is still port crops but refused to sacrifice their inde- pretty rudimentary on the sources of bargain- pendent income-earning activities. Instead, ing power in different socioeconomic con- they transferred domestic duties to older texts. We need to identify the factors that af- daughters. fect exit options and voice for women and men in households. If, as policymakers, we A second example is rural-urban migration, can affect outside options, we need to know which is now widely looked at as a household where we can get the greatest return. Does it labor and capital market diversification strat- make sense to focus on property rights, the egy. From a gender analytic perspective, one legal system, education, or labor market dis- might ask, when young people migrate to the crimination? To prioritize, we need both time city, what are the differential impacts on men series and cross-sectional studies on the intra- and women in the rural families that stay be- household impacts of legislative changes, re- hind? What does it mean for the gender divi- allocation of property rights, human capital sion of labor and intrahousehold resource al- programs, credit schemes, and so on. To do location when a daughter migrates compared these studies correctly, we need to have sys- with a son? tematic data collection that disaggregates in- What should the Bank do differently to ad- come, assets, and labor allocation by house- dress gender issues? How can one avoid the hold member and that develops innovative unintended gender-biased consequences of methodologies to measure voice, exit, prefer- development policies and projects that Joe ence heterogeneity, and other intrahousehold Stiglitz mentioned earlier? One approach is to dynamics. involve gender advisors from the beginning of though this has yet to be proved-the welfare Discussant: Lynn Bennett, Social Develop- of society, including men. We want to move ment Sector Unit, South Asia from the equilibrium of inefficient economic I must say that I have learned, both from re- situations in which these physical differences cent background reading and the discussion today, several new words for culture: "super- structure,'' "institutional arrangements," "rules of the game," and, from Marjorie McElroy's paper, "extrahousehold environmental pa- rameters" or EEPs. To me, all these boil down to code words for culture. I want to talk about this forbidden word, in particular an inspiration I had on how differ- ences between men and women become dis- parities. We start with the biological differ- ences. Women bear children and in general are a little smaller than men. Society turns these differences into cultural constructions Lynn Bennett: The ecorlonzicand political invisi- that have social and economic consequences. bility of women caused by the inside-outside dichot- First, there is a strong inside-outside dichot- omy creates a vulnerabilityfor women. Violence then can be seen as the ultimate enforcer of gender- omy. The fact that women bear children is based social exclusion. interpreted to mean that women belong inside the four walls of the home. Purdah is one are reinforced by society as disadvantages and manifestation of this. In general, women are move to cultural constructions that interpret associated with the household and the family, female and male roles in ways that don't lead whereas men are associated with markets, to disparities. Responsibility for kids doesn't politics, and everything else outside the mean blocked access mediated by a benevo- household. Women's access to information, lent dictator. Smaller physical stature doesn't economic resources, capacities, opportunities, mean vulnerability to violence. therefore, are all mediated and limited by men. Second, smaller physical stature can be The difficulty the Bank has in moving in this linked with gender violence. The economic direction is that barriers to change are embed- and political invisibility of women caused by ded in cultural and social institutions and be- the inside-outside dichotomy creates a vulner- haviors that occur within the private sphere of ability for women. Violence then can be seen households. The Bank is not seen as having a as the ultimate enforcer of gender-based social legitimate right to intervene in the sphere in exclusion. which gender differences are embedded. All this leads to much weaker bargaining We have begun unpacking the "black box" of power for women. How societies construct the household and seen how bargaining between meaning of differences between men and men and women and young and old can affect women obviously has huge consequences for the allocation of resources. We've begun to the welfare of women, children, and-al- not accept the household as a black box any more. I'd like to challenge the Bank to move on to the second black box, which is culture. who are obviously dominant-we need to un- What we've learned about the household may derstand the subordinate group in that culture encourage us to look inside culture, which is as well. The whole business of consultationis important, because household and cultural to get beyond the official view of who our cli- dimensions are closely linked. ents are down to our ultimate clients, the ex- cluded. As an anthropologist, I view culture not as something static any more than the household Work on intrahouseholdallocation is impor- is unitary. Cultures have internal tensions, tant for the Bank because it shows how the subordinated and dominant groups. Social ex- things that affect economics-where we do clusion keeps some groups on the outsideby have a legitimate right to intervene as an in- gender,caste, economics,home location, lan- stitution-also have linkages to the private guage, and citizenship.Part of what anthro- sphere, the household, and the cultural sphere pologists do is look at how these disparities in which we don't have a legitimate right to are negotiated among subordinate and domi- intervene. If we in the Bank don't make that nant groups. Once we deal with the minister connection,we will lose much information on of finance and minister of culture-the guys the real consequences of our work. own time impacted negatively on their ability Discussion to participate in economic activities. Men are Ravi Kanbur opened discussion of the pres- often remunerated for project work they en- entationsfrom the first and second sessions by gage in. So, expectations for participation by asking the audience to consider two questions: gender is an area of policy and research con- how can the Bank advance interdisciplinary research in the area of gender and develop- ment and what specificoperational problems have members of the audience faced, whose solution would allow them to do a better job? Several members of the audience raised points. Marty Chen, a discussant in the after- noon session on gender and the economy, urged more research be done on the impact of widowhood on interhousehold distribution of resources. Another member of the audience pointed out that the Bank tends to hire staff from included groups and suggested finding a way for more Bank staff to come from ex- cluded groups, thereby providing a model to the world. Others again stressed the imvor- - tance of gender-disaggregateddata and the Ravi Kanbur: How can the Bank advance inrerdis- ciplinary research in the area of gender and devel- need to understand the of women's opment and what specifc operational problems income in understanding their situation. have members ofthe audiencefaced, whose solution Someoneelse stated that expecting Women to would allow them to do a betlerjob. participate in development projects on their cern. depth questions on decisionmaking, prefer- ence heterogeneity, and so on and which is One member of the audience cited the need now considered quite important. But now, for the Bank to take interhousehold transfers there's a lot of room for innovation in the into account in analyses of household nego- standard formats of socioeconomic surveys to tiations. A number of studies have shown that get better data, and it may not be as costly as many female-headed households receive up to some people might think. 50 percent of their income from outside sources, for example, a son, parent, or former A member of the audience who had served as spouse. People also often move between a gender analyst on Bank projects pointed out households, for example, children sent to live that, although resources exist to include gen- with relatives. Such information improves der specialists on the preparation and design perception of bargaining power of women and of a project, little is spent on supervision. their control over resources. Doing so during supervision can ensure that problems don't come up later. Lynn Bennett responded to the question of whether the Bank could support women's or- Another audience member underscored the ganizations at the local and national levels by important role of donors in providing the data saying that the Bank certainly needed to un- and analysis in casting light on gender issues. derstand gender better but not necessarily She also stressed the need to identify where conduct cultural engineering. What the Bank one can get the biggest return for limited proj- needs to do is listen to a wider range of voices ect resources. When does disaggregation and give those voices space to negotiate their really matter? When will a project really have own solutions. a big impact? What are our priorities? Marjorie McElroy responded to the point Joanne Salop asked whether gender makes a raised on the variability of women's income difference in terms of ministerial decisions or by saying that a key issue is specialization and public spending decisions? Does it make a household production. Divorce or death of a difference in the Bank? In addition to under- spouse can automatically reduce the value of standing allocation within the unitary house- part of a woman's human capital, however, hold, what about the unitary ministry, the there is little social protection for this. unitary government, and the unitary World Bank? John Hoddinott responded to several ques- tions on how to operationalize what is being A member of the audience suggested that it is learned on gender concerns. He stated that possible to take existing, ongoing surveys and using a top-down approach, working with add a module or part that solicits more refined ministers, for example, to effect change, data on gender than before. She also noted would make little progress. Instead, he sug- that, although she had heard much discussion gested a bottom-up approach, for example, by during the workshop supporting the need for strengthening women's groups, NGOs, and so more research, she had heard nothing estab- on at the grassroots level. lishing the case for training. In other words, what research is needed to establish what Elizabeth Katz addressed the issue of survey strategy or methodology that task managers methodology and making empirical tests rele- across the board should adopt to address gen- vant for policy. Until recently, everyone tried der issues properly? to do the best they could with existing data sets, which might have had minimal disaggre- Guy Standing, a panelist in an afternoon ses- gation by gender but didn't really answer in- sion, pointed out that many data reproduce norms-what you think you should be doing, series of comparable studies done with com- rather than what people are actually doing. parable data and comparable methodologies. The issue is not getting more disaggregated This might be useful for the Bank to consider - - - data, it's the appropriateness of the data and doing. The Bank already conducts a series of how it was collected. living standards measurement surveys in dif- ferent parts of the world that follow a com- John Hoddinott noted that there's been a big mon survey methodology and track a series of swing of the pendulum in the last five or six common types of welfare outcomes. It would years from a lack of belief that, for example, be interesting to take a series of these studies, gender control of income actually mattered to use the same econometric methodology, break a point of view that has perhaps gone too far income in to male and female control, and the other way. It's not correct to say that look for a consistent pattern across a range of women always spend money responsibly and countries. men spend money irresponsibly. The real problem is that there aren't at the moment a with a Policy Research Report to be com- Lunch: pleted sometime next year-in effect a mini- World Development Report on gender and Host: Sven Sandstriim, Managing Director gender equality. In addition, the World De- velopment Report 2000 will have a major fo- Let me thank you for coming here today and cus on gender, and we-by that I mean the to this luncheon. We need your help. We need your inputs and your ideas. Gender and gen- der equality is clearly one of the key priorities or levers for more effective development. We at the Bank have put together a very ef- fective machine for delivering more effective development. We have restructureded and delayered our organization, and moved a large number of staff and managers out into the field. We have put together new management teams and are bringing in new and external expertise with ideas and perhaps more energy than many of us old-timers within the Bank. But now we need to focus this machine. To do that, we need your ideas and advice. After the discussion this morning, it's clear Sven Sandstrom: We have put together new man- that we are beginning to assemble and organ- agement teams and are bringing in rzew arzd external ize ideas and proposals on what we need to do expertise with ideas and perhaps more energy tharz analytically, operationally, and in terms of a many of us old-timers within the Bank. But now we skills mix and training. We will continue that need tofocus this machine. To do that, we need your process through the afternoon. I was particu- ideas and advice. larly glad to hear Joe Stiglitz promise you we would start to deliver on the analytical side Bank and all its clients and partners-we de- 16 termined to build an ever strong focus on Columbia University School of International gender -- bringing together what we have Public Affairs. Among her many other activi- learned and what we have been doing. ties, she headed the women's programs at the U.N. Asia Pacific Development center in Our luncheon speaker is Rounaq Jahan...and I Malaysia and at the International Labour Or- am delighted to welcome her to the Bank. She ganisation in Geneva. She is also, as you is well known as an intellectual and activist in know, a well-known author, including Elusive the women's movement as well as the human Agenda: Mainstreaming Women in Develop- rights movement. She founded Women for ment, which focuses on, among other things, Women, a pioneering research and study how international institutions can improve group in Bangladesh, served as professor of their work on women's issues. political science at Dacca University in Bangladesh, and is currently a professor at resources; we are also interested in shaping Rounaq Jahan (Columbia University) the development agenda. Gender and International Institutions I was asked to speak on "gender and interna- tional institutions," the theme of my book, It is indeed a great honor and privilege to have ~ h EL^^^^^ ~ , ~~ ~ ~~women d ~i : this oppofiunity to share some of my thoughts in Development (London: Zed Books, 1995) with you. Many of us, who consider ourselves and update my thinking on the topic. What 1 to be advocates of gender equality, feel par- ticularly encouraged by the consistent stand of the World Bank's president, Mr. Wolfensohn, on the issue of gender and development. The messages he has been articulating about the development challenges of our time-the challenge of inclusion, creating opportunities for the groups who have been excluded so far, poverty reduction, maintaining investment in social and human development even as we face financial crisis, open and transparent governance, fighting corruption, partnership building, particularly with civil society groups-have also been the messages of the international women's movement. We are particularly pleased that Mr. Wolfensohn does not simply talk about women's development. He articulates a vision of development that is Rounaq Jahan: Weneed to know what results the very similar to the visions and values of the Bank is promising on gender equality and what meas- internationalwomen's movement. Many of us ures the Bank would use to assess itsprogress. De$n- in the international women's movement have ing results and identibing monitoring indicators to ussess achievement of results, therefore, i.r a priority insisted that our demands for a voice be heard. askfo the We do not simply want to get our share of the have tried to do in my book is clarify the bi- morning about the Bank's planned new lateral development agencies (CIDA and initiatives. NORAD) and two miltilateral institutions Third, although the two bilateral agencies (UNDP and the World Bank) in the field of adopted a lot of measures, many of these what used to be known as "Women in Devel- were to institutionalize gender issues opment" (WID) and is now called "Gender within the agencies, what I call input-side and Development" (GAD). I look at these interventions. But, in this struggle for in- agencies' work roughly from 1975to 1992- stitutionalization-that is, the fight over 93. You may find some of the findings of the scarce agency resources, for example, staff book to be interesting: and budget-the output-oriented concerns, First, on the whole, the two bilateral in- for example, changing operations and stitutions have taken more initiatives and having impact on the ground, often got measures than the two multilateral institu- lost. Agencies were generally monitoring tions. One reason for this difference is that the input interventions-whether staff public accountability for these two bilat- have been recruited, guidelines made, eral institutions is much stronger. They are training organized, and so on, but there accountable to their parliaments, and was very little monitoring of whether members of parliament are responsive to these measures were influencing the agen- constituency pressure, for example, cies' own operations. And I found very women's movements in these two coun- little impact data. tries. In the case of the two multilateral in- Fourth, a large part of the multilateral in- stitutions, accountability is to their gov- stitutions' efforts on the issue of gender erning boards, but board discussions are and development depended on extra budg- not held in the public domain. Women's etary resources, and these were coming movements have very little access to these from only a few bilateral agencies. These boards. Recently, however, the situation is countries, Canada, Netherlands, and the changing at the United Nations. Interna- Nordic countries, were also raising the tional nongovernmental organizations gender issues in the discussion of the gov- (NGOs) and the NGO community as a erning boards. whole are gaining more access and influ- ence. When 1was working on my book, quite fortu- nately, I was also asked to prepare two key Second, of the four agencies, the World documents for the Women in Development Bank made the least conscious effort be- (WID) Export Group of the Organization of tween 1975-92. During the Women's Economic Cooperation and Development As- Decade (1975-85), the Bank recruited an sistance Committee (OECDIDAC). In 1992,I adviser but did not give her adequate re- prepared a concept paper on mainstreaming, sources. The Bank began more systematic and, in 1994,I prepared the synthesis report and systemwide work after the end of the on DAC's evaluation of their efforts. I found Women's Decade Conference in Nairobi this contact with the WID Expert Group to be in 1985.What is encouraging about the very useful because, even before publication Bank is that, after Nairobi, it kept a steady of my book, I could feed many of my recom- pace of work and, since Beijing, at least mendations into the DAC members' ongoing the Bank's president has been consistently work. I shall not get into the details of my placing the agenda on the table. I was very recommendations here because many of these heartened by Mr. Stiglitz7sstatement this recommendations, for example, the need for time-bound targets, results, and indicators; translate its policy intentions into concrete national and institutional capacity building; actions. local ownership; and so on, are already on the We are very heartened that the Bank's presi- agenda of international institutions. So, let me dent is talking about being judged by results now turn more specifically to the World Bank on the ground. This is a move in the right di- and tell you what I and many others in the rection. But, if from now on we are to judge women's movement would like the World the Bank by results, we need to know what Bank to do. results the Bank is promising on gender Last week, the Bank sent me a number of equality and what measures the Bank would documents that elaborate the Bank's policy use to assess progress toward achieving the and operational guidelines on gender. I also results. I consider defining results and identi- received in the same packet some statements fying indicators to assess achievements of re- by Mr. Wolfensohn and Mr. Sandstrom. This sults to be a priority task for the Bank. morning I listened to Mr. Stiglitz. I found Many of us who are concerned about getting these statements and guidelines to be excel- results also know that monitoring quantitative lent. The Bank's 1995publication, Towards results is easier than qualitative results. I hope Gender Equality, very succinctly gathers evi- very much that in elaborating the results of dence as to how gender inequalities hamper gender equality, the Bank will identify both economic growth and the role public policies quantitative as well as qualitative measures. can play to close gender gaps. The Bank's two Quantitative targets for closing gender gaps in evaluation reports on mainstreaming gender in certain areas of human development, for ex- the Bank's lending notes steady progress. ample, education, health, and nutrition, are What is more interesting, the 1997 update relatively easy; we should have targets and finds that projects that have gender-related timetables for these. But, equally important, is actions achieve their overall objectives more to establish some measures of qualitative pro- often than those that do not have such actions. cesses and results on consultation, participa- And, this morning, Mr. Stiglitz made persua- tion, voice, and empowerment. It is true that sive arguments for greater investments in the Bank is now moving toward more partici- women. pation and consultation, but I find that, I must admit after reading all the docu- whereas this kind of stakeholder consultation ments-the statement from higher manage- often takes place during the design phase of a ment that gives the right directions, policy program, after the program is designed, not papers from the Bank that provide an excel- much attention is given to instituting mecha- lent economic rationale, and evaluation re- nisms to involve stakeholders in implement- ports that note positive performance out- ing projects. Much more needs to be done to comes-I was wondering whether there is resolve this problem. now a stampede among Bank staff to get on This morning, Mr. Stiglitz very effectively board on gender issues! Are bank officials elaborated on the equity, efficiency, and practicing what the management and policy sustainability arguments for addressing gender and evaluation reports are advocating? Be- issues. What I would like to highlight now is cause I do not have any recent empirical data how in practice the Bank can do a better job. on the Bank's performance, I do not want to draw any conclusion myself. I certainly would PolicJ'dialogue. The Bank should use policy urge the Bank, particularly the management, dialogue more effectively to raise gender is- to monitor the Bank's practice closely. We are sues with counterparts. The Bank is already all eagerly waiting to see how the Bank will using dialogue, but many of us who have been 19 present in these dialogues feel that policy ad- But here again, the project often asserts it will vocacy can be done more effectively. In many benefit women when the project design in situations, gender issues are not raised as many cases does not identify specific actions central concerns but only as marginal issues. to address gender inequality. Often the argument of "cultural sensitivity" is Monitoring and accountability. Again, a lot of used for not strongly advocating gender work is still needed to develop performance equality and equity issues. But states and de- indicators for monitoring and accountability. velopment cooperation agencies have often If the management is serious about closing the arbitrarily used the term "culturally sensitive" gaps between design and implementation, for telling people how many children they policy and practice, this is an urgent task. should have. But the international agencies (and our government) did not feel constrained Let me conclude on a note of optimism on the by "culture" when they advocated for the need progress I have seen personally in institutions. to adopt the norm of two children per couple. In the late 1970s,I was very interested in I have often wondered what would have hap- teaching a course on Women and Develop- pened if we had put on a similar campaign for ment. But the leading U.S. universities did not the past twenty years with other kinds of mes- see a market for such a course at the time. sages-messages for girls' education and But, when I returned to the United States in women's empowerment, for example. Actu- the early 1990s,I found a complete change in ally, in many developing countries, civil soci- attitude of university faculty and administra- ety groups, including women's organizations, tion. At Columbia University, where I now are quite willing to advocate on these issues. teach a course on Gender and Development, We should bring them into partnership to there is tremendous student demand for such a raise gender equality and equity issues. course. Of course, the faculty and administra- tion are now keen to have such a course in the Country Assistance Strategy. The Country curriculum. So, the university administration Assistance Strategy (CAS) is another impor- had to change when the market changed. tant instrument that the Bank can use more effectively to advocate gender equality and My final plea to the management and staff of equity issues. Often gender issues are noted the World Bank is: please look around! The under a separate heading on "cross-cutting world has changed. The market has changed. issues." But the implications of this cross- People want different kinds of products. If the cutting issue are not systematically drawn in Bank does not change, there will be no market other sections of CAS reports. for the Bank's products, and the Bank will be out of business. Project design. Increasingly, Bank projects are addressing gender issues in project design. Session3: Gender and Society Chair: GloriaDavis, Head, Social Develop- ment Family Robert Picciotto, Director General, Opera- This gender discrimination depletes social tions Evaluation capital, the valuable capacity of societies to work toward common goals. Why is this so? Gender and Social Capital Social capital-as much an asset as physical, human, and natural capital are--can make the In my presentation today, I am calling for other forms of capital work more efficiently more research at the intersection of gender by facilitating coordination and reducing and social capital. Both topics are missing links to development. Both have not been very visible in the social sciences or develop- ment practice. Let me first define the two terms. Gender places cultural significance onto sexual iden- tity. Social capital is the capacity to work to- gether in associations and organizations. The term social capital is coming into its own as part of the broad movement on institutional economics. This is fortunate, because three misconceptions have been shattered. The first is that the family is an irreducible unit of analysis. Second, the patriarch has been as- sumed to act rationally on behalf of all mem- bers of the family. This avoids the issue of violence in the family, and the theory of gain Robert Picciotto: Unlessyou bring in women, the within the family is not analyzed. Third, the shaping of the twenty-first centuiy. which is largely value of women's labor in the home has not based on issues of public goods, is not going to be been accounted for because it's not part of a realized. Because gender matters to social capital market, a mistake worth roughly $8 trillion. relations, development potential is closely connected with the status of women. The better a society treats its The thesis I put forward is that the status of women, the greater the social harmony and the higher women is positively correlated with economic the economic productivity. productivity and harmony, not only because women constitute an untapped reservoir of transaction costs. The more social capital is energy and skills, but, more important, fair based on partnership, which requires trust, the and inclusive gender relations can create so- more transaction costs decline. Because cial capital. A gender gap in education de- working in partnership tends to be a more fe- prives the network of knowledge. The net- male attitude, experience, and asset in terms work of work, which is also important for so- of skills, trust is inexorably linked to gender. cial capital, is also deprived by a gender gap Therefore, gender discrimination depletes in the paid labor force, which is large and un- trust, hinders family relations, restricts social derstated because women only get low-paid networks, and depletes social capital. If you work. In the political network, only I 1 percent have a system in which women are confined of parliamentary positions globally are held by to the home, you really cannot expect to build women. In general, then, no country has much community social capital. eliminated gender discrimination. This prob- lem, outlawed in 1948by the Commission on Development interventions require a mix of Human Rights, has yet to be tackled seriously. skills, ranging from the competitive to the collaborative. Depending on the nature of the is largely based on issues of public goods, is goods produced and if we decide that global not going to be realized. Because gender or national public goods are in short supply, matters to social capital relations, develop- you also need to include more participation ment potential is closely connected with the and fewer formal contractual relations. You status of women. The better a society treats its need to organize things on a smaller scale. It women, the greater the social harmony and seems to me that, unless you bring in women, the higher the economic productivity. the shaping of the twenty-first century, which publican model from France based on a notion Jo Beall (London School of Economics) of social solidarity. The concept of social ex- Gender and Social Exclusion clusion implies a process of multiple depriva- tion that involves individuals, groups, or en- I would like to explore the implications of tire communities, facing low income,job in- using a social exclusion framework to analyze security, poor housing, family stress, and so- and address gender issues in development. cia1alienation. They may be wholly or par- The term social exclusion, which has its ori- tially excluded from participating in social, gins in Europe, has had different meanings. political, and economic life. This view of so- Colloquially, social exclusion can refer either to kicking out the excluded or depriving peo- ple of certain rights. The first definition is relevant to the European context, referring to people excluded from labor markets and wel- fare benefits with the decline of welfare states. The second definition is more relevant to developing countries, where the poorest have never participated in labor markets nor had access to welfare benefits in the first place. When applied to the analysis and practice of social policy, the definition of social exclu- sion has evolved. Lenoir referred to it as the rupture of the social bond between the state and those living at the margin.' This entails a Jo Beall: Governments bestow rights and citizens can demand them. Are development agencies in a position social contract between the state and citizens to bestow rights? Should they only work with gov- and is relevant to current global structural ernments who have a good human rights and change, in which processes of production and women's rights record? Should they work with or- exchange are altering dramatically, leading to ganizations in civil society who arefighting for these long-term unemployment. rights? What has come out of Europe and diffused to cial exclusion regards deprivation as not the South combines the Anglo-Saxon concern solely based on poverty or income or access to for poverty and access to resources through an resources but also on identity and social rela- individualistic vision of society with the re- tions, a potentially useful framework for ana- development. A social exclusion approach can lyzing gender. add value here. What is the advantage of a social exclusion The social exclusion agenda also accommo- perspective in the context of the South? Is yet dates notions of equity and difference along another Eurocentric term useful? According to with concern about rights. This in turn ac- DeHahn and Maxwell, it offers an opportunity commodates gender-aware policy in the con- for dialogue and cross-fertilization between text of development cooperation. Some, such North and South: disadvantage is growing in as Cecil Jackson, argue that there are dangers the North and persistent in the South, and ine- in the way development cooperation has quality is growing in both places.' linked gender and poverty so closely.3 Un- doubtedly, poverty, like social exclusion, is a A criticism is that analysis of social exclusion gendered experience, but in the context of de- implies that the solution is social inclusion. velopment cooperation, we have to ask But, do we want to impose uniformity in the whether development institutions should in- face of social diversity, including diversity tervene outside of a concern with poverty. between women and men? Despite this po- Governments bestow rights, and citizens can tential pitfall, the term has analytical advan- demand them. Are development agencies in a tages. A positive way to look at it is to link it position to bestow rights? Should they only to a rights-based rather than an exclusively work with governments that have a good hu- needs-based approach. This is in tune with man rights and women's rights record? new trends in development cooperation in Should they work with organizations in civil general and approaches to gender issues in society that are fighting for these rights? development in particular. These are some of the auestions I would pose HOWdoes the above discussion relate to gen- to the Bank in relation to its work on gender - der? Early work on women in development We know that development cooperation is not (WID) was indeed characterized by a rights- that simple. Poor women have not been based approach: the right of women to work, reached because of social and institutional participate in public life, make reproductive relations, not just lack of resources. We also choices, and so on. This gave way to a poverty know that empowerment approaches to pov- focus due to a general shift to a basic needs erty have not just reduced need but enabled approach. In addition, the development estab- poor women to engage in civil action and lishment viewed the rights-based approach as claim social, economic, and political rights. If more threatening, and many women in devel- a social exclusion analysis can reinforce these oping countries were more concerned with approaches, all the better. daily survival issues than individual rights. Gender is perhaps the most common fault line A social exclusion approach accommodates for social exclusion. But we cannot look at the shift in thinking from a needs-based ap- gender without looking at the role of men as proach to also include a rights-based approach well as women and at the relations between to gender issues in development. The Bejjing them. The value of the social exclusion ap- Platform for Action tried to bring these two proach is that it has shown that men are also together, but a WID-type, liberal focus on in- excluded. For example, women are replacing dividual rights prevailed, other than a notion men at work in many European steel sectors. of rights associated with "social solidarity" There is always a danger that women's issues that was more closely related to citizen rights. will be marginalized by an increasing focus This is still something that needs to be incor- on men, but if we fail to focus on men, we porated and understood within the context of 23 will not be able to move beyond the gender 3. Cecil Jackson. 1996. "Rescuing Gender from the debates of the 1980s.~ Poverty Trap." World Development 24(3):489-504. 4. Other sources for this paper include: 1 . Cited in G. B. Rodgers, C. Gore, and J . B. Figueiredo. 1995. Social Exclusion: Rhetoric, Reality, J . Beall. 1998. "The Gender and Poverty Nexus in the Resporises (Geneva:International Institute for Labor DFID While Paper: Opportunity or Constraint?'Jour- Studies). rtal of lriternational Developmerrt ([Forthcoming?]). 2. A. DeHahn and S. Maxwell. 1998. "Poverty and A. DeHahn. 1998. "'Social Exclusion': An Alternative Social Exclusion in North and South." Editorial. IDS Concept for the Study o f Deprivation?" IDS Bulletin Bulletin. 29(1),January. 29( 1 ), January. nized as a development problem, so let's turn Caroline Moser, Environmentally Sustain- to its costs. able Development, Latin America A lot of work has been done on the direct and Gender and Violence indirect macroeconomic development costs of violence. I won't get into figures, but they are Violence is a highly complex and context- very high. Work is also being done on the specific topic. Communities and policymakers costs of domestic violence. For example, one may not share the same definitions of violence recent study in a Latin American country and, therefore, their priorities may differ. Work on this problem has come up with three categories-social violence, economic vio- lence, and political violence-and a number of subcategories. People usually think that violence and gender refer to domestic violence, between two part- ners in a household, usually by men against women. Furthermore, economic and political violence are usually regarded as violence out- side the household by men against men. I'd like to highlight some issues that show, I think, that all violence is gendered. This has become a critical issue because vio- lence is extensive and becoming pervasive, although data on the problem need improve- Caroline Mose: The problem of violence has enormous ment. For example, in one Ecuadorian city, implicatiorisfor policy because of its links with poverty, one of five women had been attacked on a inequality, and exclusion. It also aflects sustainabili~. bus. In Metro Manila, six of ten women who Violence is now recognized as a developmerit problem. had been widowed were so because their hus- bands were killed in violent fights in bars. The problem of violence has enormous impli- showed that women who have experienced cations for policy because of its links with violence earn 38 percent less than women poverty, inequality, and exclusion. It also af- who don't. fects sustainability. Violence is now recog- At the micro level, we are looking at how women in the same community saw unem- violence erodes the assets of the poor: labor, ployment as leading to pregnancy, dependence human capital, and productive assets. Vio- on men, abuse, and other violence. Programs lence can also affect household relations and can reinforce such gender-baseddifferences. work as well as social capital. Why does that Programs for at-risk teenage boys often center matter? The argument goes that the fewer as- around employment, skills, and sports. Pro- sets poor women and men have, the more grams for girls often prioritize teenage preg- vulnerable they are. We need to understand nancy. how violence increases or erodes the assets of Social violence involves not only male-female the poor and identify how assets are gendered violence but also adult-child violence. In Ec- and affected by different types of violence. uador and Hungary, domestic violence was What are some of the socioeconomic costs of identified as the most important reason for different types of gendered violence? I want to household restructuring. But this also reduces start with political violence. In Chiapas in the capacity of the household to maximize the Mexico, Liberia, and Bosnia, pregnant women use of its assets. have been targets as the bearers of future Let's look at future challenges. You may have fighters. Another example is the forcible dis- noticed that I have not discussed the causes of placement of families by war. Men seem to violence, but, of course, understanding them cope much better than women with the trauma is both important to finding solutions and involved, whereas women cope better after difficult because many disciplines are they relocate. They recreate social networks working on the question with different target and capital faster than men. When the men groups. We have, therefore, been thinking lose their land, however, they feel they have about a holistic framework.Lori Heise has lost their identity. NGOs working with dis- looked at what she calls an ecological placed people often focus on women and chil- framework that addresses different causes at dren; little is done to address the trauma for the individual, interpersonal, social men. community, or societal levels. This is Economic violence involves anything from important, because the determinants of one gangs to criminal activities, drugs, and so on. type of violence can affect other types of In Jamaica, we found that lack of work and violence. In El Salvador, as political violence employment opportunities cause poverty that decreased, economic and social violence directly affects levels of violence. But gender- increased. Likewise, recommendations on based differences also existed in the percep- how to affect one type of violence may or may tion of how unemployment relates to violence. not reduce other types of violence. So, we're Men said that unemployment led to involve- trying to understand the relationship among ment in gangs, stealing, getting imprisoned, causes, impacts, and interventions. and so on, unless they migrated. Young Gita Gopal,Africa TechnicalHuman Devel- opment Gender, Law, and Society Urgent action is needed to improve the social status of women, and law can be an important tool, which I was glad to hear Mr. Stiglitz re- inforce this morning. Law empowers women. It sets the rules of the game. It creates obliga- tions and enforceable rights. At the same time, by and large, legal reform has failed. The challenge before us is to understand how we can effectively use law for positive social change. Now, within the Bank, I see two approaches that use law for social change: the traditional or rights-based approach, mentioned by Ms. Beall, and an "untrodden" approach. The first approach has failed; we are now testing the Gita Gopal: Law empowers Mromen.It sets the rules of the game. It creates obligations and enforceable rights. second in the Eastern African region. Let me At the same time, by and large, legal reform hasfailed. give you some examples: The challenge before us is to understand how we can effectively use lawfor positive social change. I'd like to read you something: "The progress achieved by Ethiopia requires the moderniza- tion of the legal system so as to keep pace the grassroots. Today Ethiopia is back using with changing circumstances." That sounds the rights-based approach, back to square one, ' like an SAR for an Ethiopian project or a debating and discussing, and we are discuss- CAS, but it is actually in the preface to the ing it with them. Ethiopian civil code, which was introduced by In Kenya, land was once communally held. Haile Selassie in 1960. Although maintaining The husband had the right of reallocation, but husbands as the heads of households, the new he did not own the land. Then, the British in- code provided much greater security for troduced a system based on titles, in contrast women. It gave them many more rights, espe- to the system based on use. They registered cially economic rights over property and re- the land, entrenching and legitimizing the sources within the household. However, after greater exclusion of women. Women sud- promulgating a new constitution in 1995,the denly did not have the right of access to land. government of Ethiopia is now asking itself, Men could sell it by their own free will. They does the constitution include women? The could gift it. They could lease it. This system answer is that it effectively excludes them. continues today in Kenya and India. The new constitution once again recognized customary practices [regarding women?], In India, the government abolished the dowry which had been completely invalidated in system, the only real right that Hindu women 1960. When the civil code was passed, how- had. They said, we'll give women equal ever, everyonejust sat back. They felt, by rights, so why do they need a dowry? What adopting a new civil code, everything had they forgot were the cultural underpinnings. been done. In reality, nothing had happened at The only real property that Hindus recognized for women was the dowry. Women were ex- who are the ones who actually do it, in jail, cluded. you also penalize their children. The new ap- proach is to listen to the women. As a result, a The moral of these stories is that the rights- new process of circumcision is taking place in based approach can create a sense of exclu- Kenya. It's a one-week process in which the sion. In all cases, it may have been well in- community gets together and talks about the tentioned, but the unpredictable and distorted cultural traditions and practices behind cir- impact was women's exclusion. In East Af- cumcision, but they don't actually do it. rica, we are shifting our approach. We are listening to the voices of African women. We What are the implications for the Bank? Stop are trying to develop or design operations that talking and start listening. Provide tools and will help people make an informed choice, an resources to facilitate participation and dia- approach particularly suited to the trend to logue. We also need to provide countries with decentralization and regionalization that is information and knowledge. We need to sweeping across eastern Africa. gather empirical evidence, analyze it, and pre- sent it to countries. We also need, as was said To illustrate this, I'd like to talk about female this morning, to develop means to measure genital mutilation (FGM). The traditional ap- participation. It's not easy, but we need to do proach would have been to ban FGM. But an it. In East Africa, we are now operationalizing Ethiopian minister asked: who is the victim? this new approach in several cases. If you put all the mothers and grandmothers, of social exclusion and how they have Discussant: Shanta Devarajan, Development evolved over time. I say this because Bob and, Research Group to some extent, Caroline Moser were trying to I'd like to refer back to the three criteria Joe create efficiency reasons for looking at gender Stiglitz mentioned this morning-+!quity, effi- and social relations questions, but you don't ciency, and sustainability. They provide a need those arguments. The equity argument framework for looking at this extremely inter- may have a role in itself. And Bob conjec- esting quartet of papers. tured that gender discrimination led to a de- In terms of what Bob Picciotto was saying, I don't think it's an accident that we start with equity, because that is still the fundamental issue in gender and development. We should not forget that economists have no problems doing things for equity reasons. We are not always looking for both efficiency and equity gain. Many or most policies are based on purely equity reasons. Of course, they have a cost, which might be efficiency, so we need to weigh those costs against other uses of our resources. ShantaDevarajan: The issue of violence is notjust Jo Beall nicely elucidated that equity perspec- abour women who were actually affected by violence tive in talking about the different definitions bur also those potentially affected. I f we look at it with this perspective, the returnsfrom efforts to re- duce violence become much greater. 27 cline in social capital, although he said we looked at those as potential ways of address- haven't proved that yet. Even if we haven't, it ing the problem. When we talk about social doesn't mean we shouldn't be dealing with exclusion, we need to ask what is the distor- problems of gender discrimination. I can think tion that's preventing free trade between ex- of situations in which social capital is actually cluded and non-excluded groups? Frequently, enhanced by the presence of gender discrimi- some of those distortions are government- nation, for example, Cameroonian tontines or induced. Perhaps, we should intervene and try credit schemes for women. Many women are to get rid of them? forming associations to escape family prob- I think that Gita Gopal's remarks on partici- lems, such as family violence. Similarly, in pation are for the most part well taken, but, Caroline's interesting presentation on vio- like all economists, I look at the costs and lence, the macro evidence might be useful, but benefits, the equity and efficiency costs that what if it went the other way? I don't think participation can have. On the efficiency side, that says we shouldn't do anything about vio- if you have an externality between two lence. So, in terms of what we do about the groups, if you allow one group to decide what problem, I think equity and rights and justice to do with a particular project or expenditure, make up the bottom line. it could spill over and hurt the other group. One efficiency argument has been neglected On the equity side, the more you decentralize, in all these presentations, that is, the avoid- the more participation you allow. You might ance of risk. A recurring theme in all these improve equity within that group but also hurt presentations is that, in addition to the direct intergroup inequality much more. harm that women face, they also face higher Another discussion I missed in this group of risk. The issue of violence is not just about presentations is on the issue of norms. women who were actually affected by vio- Economists tend to take norms as given when lence but also those potentially affected. If we they do their analysis. But then we come up look at it with this perspective, the returns with conclusions that might actually be dan- from efforts to reduce violence become much gerous. There are also situations in which greater. norms themselves are endogenous; they are I'd like to go out on a limb and say that one actually changing. How can we do any em- thing missing in all the presentations was that pirical work if the one thing we hold exoge- the market is a potential solution as well. The nous is now endogenous? We would have no market can be very powerful. There's a nice way of making estimations. It goes back to paper by Jean-Paul Azam on how the rnini- what Joe was saying this morning. If we don't mum wage actually solves a coordination fail- understand how norms are changing-and ure on wages between men and women in ru- norms do change-we may be getting the di- ral markets. This is garden-variety economic rection of policy wrong. policy. I'm surprised that people haven't Discussion Gloria Davis opened up the session to ques- tions and statements from the audience. One member of the audience noted that many con- tradictory values exist in the kind of relations one finds within the household and commu- nity. Working in poor neighborhoods, you don't necessarily find trust and sometimes just its opposite, because scarcity of resources leads to mistrust that others will want to steal what you have. There is danger in idealizing women's value and household unity. Another member of the audience noted that often the Bank is pleased that modernization is producing a lot of economic benefits but does not have any way of acknowledging or Gloria Davis:Social development involves charzges in relationships, and no relations ure changing more quantifying all of the traditional benefits and dramaticall? then gender relations at this time. protections that are being lost. Someone else noted that the panel seems to Gita Gopal said that she was not necessarily disagree on whether a rights-based approach opposed to a rights-based approach but why is good or bad. Although the rights-based ap- not make it a choice? Let the people who are proach could lead to discriminatory practices, being governed by these rights decide if they she thought the Bank could promote want the rights-based approach. She advo- empowerment and bottom-up approaches that cated a process that would move from a focus guarantee or inform people about their rights on norms, which are rights-based, to a focus and also provide loans for institutional reform more on process. that give people access and recourse so that these rights are guaranteed. Session 4 Chair:Lyn Squire, Director, Development Economics Lourdes Beneria, Professor of City and Re- gional Planning, Cornell University Genderand Economic Restructuring One of the problems we have had in the past is that we have analyzed gender issues-and organizations have approached gender is- sues-by "ghettoizing" them in a women's session or section, as if gender was about women. Gender, however, is a relational cate- gory. We need to take that into consideration at all times, even when we talk about gender and the economy. We can only talk about the wage gender gap if we relate women's wages to men's wages. If we talk about a high fe- male-male ratio, we also need to talk about the cultural practices and norms behind it that relate to men and women. . This is important to what I'm going to say Lourdes Beneria: The World Bank has a crucial role to play in thinking through the kinds of social action about gender and economic restructuring, be- programs that are needed to deal with rapid eco- cause I start from the notion that the economy nomic restructuring und transformation. is a gendered structure. It is not static but con- stantly changing. So, how do gender divisions jobs, now see them as male jobs. Economic actually affect economic transformation? A restructuring has had an impact. typical example is the existence of an un- tapped labor force in many countries attract- Now, I'd like to summarize a case study on ing foreign investment due to low female industrial relocation in which I have been in- wages. Economic transformation is connected volved to make discussion of this topic more to initial gender divisions existing in a coun- concrete. In 1992 Smith-Corona Corporation try. Even governments have used this to at- announced its relocation from Cortland, New tract foreign investment. Mexico, to Tijuana, Mexico. This eventually affected almost 1,000 workers, two-thirds of On the other hand, economic change has an which were women. Our study followed the impact on gender division, on the shape that labor market trajectories of the laid-off work- gender takes, on the meanings of gender. For ers for three to four years. The average Smith- example, restructuring along the United Corona worker was a rural, blue-collar States-Mexican border since the 1980s has woman with twenty-two years of experience. defeminized the labor force in the region. The company's main product was typewriters. Men, who once saw certain jobs as female In the process of relocation, workers found must constantly monitor rapid changes to new jobs quickly, but the earnings distribution come up with stylized facts, that is, do em- changed dramatically. Although the large pirical research that allows us to see the simi- majority of workers experienced downward larities and differences from case to case. job mobility, one-fifth of them did better. The Second, the costs of relocation are borne al- average loss of earnings was $8,000 per most exclusively by the dislocated workers. worker; for men it was an average of $9,000. Economic restructuring speeds up labor mar- However, the loss for men represented only ket flexibilization but without the appropriate 26 percent of previous earnings and, for social programs to deal with unemployment women, 35 percent, so women lost more than and problems felt at the household level, job men. In this way, economic restructuring led instability, relocation problems. Third, in this to an increase in the gender wage gap in that era of rapid global change, elaboration of so- community. This may provide an idea of why cial protection programs is important. I know the gender wage gap in the United States has that some argue that social protection slows widened since 1993. down the speed of labor market adjustment, but we don't really have evidence for that and, Now, on the Tjjuana side, the story isjust the even if it does, efficiency conflicts with eq- opposite. Smith-Corona decided to employ uity. Which are we going to give priority, and fewer people, so relocation also meant how can the winners compensate the losers? downsizing. Women were also the majority of Fourth, education and training programs are workers hired. Smith-Corona found, however, extremely important for workers to adjust to that workers lacked skills, so education and relocation. Fifth, trade and economic restruc- training programs were needed. Lnterestingly, turing can lead to feminization, linked to what after five years, Smith-Corona sold the Ti- has been called the downward trend adjust- juana plant and is now reorganizing into a ment. I want to point out, however, that there virtual corporation that will not undertake any are also processes of defeminization, for ex- production. Instead, it will subcontract eve- ample, linked to technological change. rything out and sell the product under the name smith-corona. ~dhere is more restruc- I will conclude simply by saying that I think turing, rapid restructuring. the World Bank has a crucial role to play in thinking through the kind of social action pro- This case study, with its decrease in earnings grams that are needed to deal with rapid eco- and polarization of income, is typical of those nomic restructuring and transformation. in the literature on industrial relocation. What lessons can we learn from them? First, we male employment and that the absorption of Guy Standing (International Labour Or- women into mainstream labor markets was ganisation) encouraging the process of flexibilization. Transformationof Jobs and Employment This was not necessarily "good news" for women, even though women have been taking In a paper I wrote ten years ago, entitled a growing share of jobs in much of the world. "Global Feminisation Through Flexible La- The fact is that men's position had deterio- bor," I argued that the spread of flexible forms rated. It is interesting to consider what has of labor were encouraging the growth of fe- happened in the past ten years. The twentieth century has been the century of the laboring man. It began with the clamor by workers and unions for the rights of labor, for dignity and freedom from the drudgery of la- bor, for men. By mid-century, unions and po- litical parties were demanding the right to la- bor, through elevating full employment to a pedestal, meaning the full employment of men. Gradually, that has given way, and as the end of the century approaches, policymakers everywhere are talking about the duty to labor and welfare reformers are eager to push young mothers intojobs. Surely, the twenty-first century will see a rethink. For most of this century, two developmental models have dominated analysis and policy. Under state socialism, women were expected to be like men in their laboring role and were Guy Standing: labor markets around the world have also expected to work a "double working become moreflexible, casual, and insecure. Womerl day." The other model has been welfare state are taking the growing share of thejobs. and men are losiilg out in many traditional forms. capitalism, which was based on the full em- ployment of men, a presumption of a nuclear family as the basis of social policy, social in- hold and family ~ ~ ~ ~ m s - aincidentally, I n d surance oriented to "breadwinners," and am Sure the "household" is not appropriate as state transfers to cover "temporary intemp- the unit for analysis of gender issues-while tions of power.1' In both models, the the labor market was becoming far more het- essence of labor policy could be summarized erogeneous. Pressure to cut social spending as the promotion of seven forms of labor se- and tUm social protection into ''social safety curity-]abor market security, employment nets" has led to more selectivity and more, security, job security (which refers to a niche rather than less, statutory regulation of eco- in production, a definable set of tasks), work nomic and social behavior. There is no such security, skill reproduction security, income thing as a "deregulated labor market." The security, and representation security. Both dominant forms of regulation have changed models gave the first form primacy, through from being ~rocollective1protective, statutory the pursuit of full employment. ~~~t other regulations to proindividualistic, market- forms were privileges, benefiting "insiders," oriented and fiscal regulations. Tax and bene- who happened to be mostly men. fit systems have been transformed into mechanisms to control behavior or give in- In the past two both have centives to some types of activity and disin- been fading. State socialism has had its many centives to others. failures. Welfare state capitalism has also been crumbling, both in terms of capacity and These changes have accentuated labor market legitimacy in industrialized countries and in insecurities, which have not been the same for terms of its appeal in developing countries as as for men. *lthough have a long-term goal. The problems began when had to face such insecllrities for generations, countries could not handle diversity, when men have been them- they were no longer able to presume house- 32 We must look at this as a gender issue, not an In connection with the first three dualisms, I issue just concerning women. believe there is much progress to be made in gender and labor market analysis by reconsid- As for "feminization," the conventional sta- ering diverse labor statuses and forms of con- tistics-and I do not like them-do indicate trol. The diagram put up here tries to capture that the trends identified in the 1970s and this, which could be elaborated in much more 1980s have continued. Updating tables given detail than is possible in the time available. It in the original article, one finds that in more is not just a question of women having control than 70 percent of the countries for which we over income, which has been emphasized to- have data, the female labor force participation day and quite correctly. One should also con- rates rose, whereas in more than 70 percent of sider control over their own labor power, the countries, the male participation rate fell. work time, means of production, raw materi- The ratio of female-to-male unemployment als, output, and proceeds of output and skill. has gone down in a large majority of countries In any labor market in the world, mechanisms (82 percent of industrialized countries, 73 exist that control the ability of men and percent of developing countries), and, in a women to develop and apply their capacities. substantial minority, male unemployment is Women, we know, suffer from more forms of now higher than female. This does not mean control. The trouble is that we have no sys- that women's situation has necessarily im- tematic information on the mechanisms, let proved. Indeed, in many countries, female un- alone the welfare and productive conse- employment has risen, but male unemploy- quences. ment has gone up more. In approaching assessments of labor markets The fourth dualism is the deserving versus , undeserving poor. This old, discredited and gender dimensions, we must focus on forms of flexibility and forms of insecurity. In distinction has crept back into the welfare- to-work debate in industrialized countries, doing so, let me plead for us to escape from and has also spread into ministries of la- four dualisms: bor in developing countries and with a The dichotomy of economically active and vengeance in countries of Eastern Europe. inactive has never been satisfactory and It has been encouraged by the drift to se- has become increasingly inadequate. The lectivity in social and public policy. The labor force approach to labor statistics was euphemisms are loaded. The ideas of tar- an outcome of the 1930s and the Keynes- geting, social safety nets, selectivity, ian revolution. It is ripe for revision. multi-tierism, conditionality, and so on, all The dualism of formal and informal sec- mean making more judgments and im- tors is misleading and a source of confu- posing more conditions on people who sion. Labor market flexibility means, may want or need social protection. We among other things, that formal enter- must be very cautious about going down prises are informalizing, through casuali- this road. The more you target, the more zation, out-sourcing, subcontracting, and you use means tests and behavior tests, and one fears that the outcome will be ex- SO on. clusion of many more of the vulnerable Regulation versus deregulation is also and destitute. It is perhaps a shame that we misleading. There are types of regulation have not incorporated these issues into the (statutory, voice, and market) and forms debate today. For gender and labor market (protective, promotion, restrictive, fiscal, relations, they are vital. and so on). Finally, I have two requests or proposals. In the 1990s, this country experienced a 40 First, we need to do far more statistical and percent drop in GDP. The World Bank and analytical work on the demand side to assess others said there was only 1.5 percent unem- how labor markets actually pattern gender ployment. In our surveys, we found firms outcomes. In the past decade, we have been slashing jobs everywhere and mass unem- designing and implementing Enterprise Labor ployment. But, more serious, male life ex- Flexibility Surveys, which have been applied pectancy at birth plummeted by seven years, in more than twenty countries. Among other so that by the middle of the decade the aver- things, they enable us to assess the different age was only 58 years. Women's life expec- forms of discrimination and disadvantage that tancy also dropped but by about one year to take place in connection with the employment 72 years. The mortality rate for men aged 25- function. Often the critical point is not at the 44 rose by 68 percent, male suicides tripled, entry level but at some later point, as with and the number of men in prison rose by sev- training or mobility or forms of remuneration eral hundred percent. Women friends in this or access to benefits. If you want to know country tell me that women are stronger. I where to focus on policy interventions, the would not wish to go into that. What we can crude data that we typically have at our dis- be sure about is that men have been trauma- posd are usually woefully inadequate and tized by the stress of economic adjustment. quite possibly misleading. We can make a lot The point here is to plead that we should fo- of progress in this area, and I hope that in the cus on gender relations and gender patterns, next decade such surveys will become the not solely on women. In most places, concern norm around the world. for gender equality means giving much more attention to improving the position of women. The second request can be illustrated by a Yet the world is changing. We should focus story about one of the largest countries in the on gender equality, because that is what is world, on which I have recently completed a required. book, which has a cover photo of a woman factory worker bleakly staring at the camera. services available to them, especially from Marguerite Berger, Chief,Microenterprise formal lenders. Unit, Inter-American Development Bank Furthermore, even in countries in which both Gender in the Informal Economy the husband and the wife must get their spouse's signature to use property as collat- It is widely claimed that microcredit has a eral, often this is applied more to the woman more positive impact on women, but the evi- than the man. dence is not clear. Smaller businesses, which most women's First, lenders lack information about potential businesses tend to be, have fewer assets to use borrowers, who tend not to have previous as collateral. In many countries, banks have credit histories. This is particularly true for high minimum capitalization requirements. women who have not had access to formal To reach micro entrepreneurs profitably, lenders and deposit services in the past. banks need to have a large number of clients. Women are also much less aware of different This leads financial institutions away from the informal sector and, therefore, women's busi- nesses In addition, many of the actual borrowers in microcredit programs are often not the poor- est; many are not even among the poor. Among borrowers, a larger proportion of women than men live in nonpoor households, because poverty is defined by household. However, if you look at the earnings of women in the microenterprise sector, women have lower earnings in most cases, either as sole proprietors, employers, or wage earners. Female microentrepreneurs who headed households also had lower incomes. For many institutions in Bolivia that special- Marguerite Berger: Even in countries in which ize in microcredit and microfinance, the pro- both the husband and the wife must get their portion of poor clients is not necessarily re- spouse's signature to use property as collateral, lated to the numbers of poor clients being often this is applied more to the woman than the reached. In discussing the issue of the tradeoff man. between access of poor women to credit ver- sus the sustainability of institutions, it is often women entrepreneurs tend to have lower forgotten that the more sustainable institu- earnings. tions, those that are even making a profit, When I was thinking about my talk today, I have greater numbers of clients. Even though also went back to an article I wrote ten years they have a smaller proportion of poor clients, ago on the subject of credit as a tool for they are actually reaching a greater absolute women's economic advancement and, par- number. ticularly, in reducing poverty among women. Access doesn't imply impact. Loans given in Comparing then to now, I noticed that the a woman's name are not necessarily con- picture is much, much more complicated due trolled by the woman herself. There are a pro- to complexities particularly in the region liferation of programs targeting women, but where I work, Latin America, in the financial you sometimes find that, although the loan markets. Because of the huge advance in the goes to the woman, the person who has the amount of research that we're doing on the ability to repay is another person in the question, we're starting to find out all the dif- household and the woman may not have the ficult linkages there. In addition, the political ability to repay the loan. prescriptions were much more simple be- Can an institution be financially sustainable or cause, back then, there was a big debate on sound and still reach down to low-income whether it was worthwhile to invest develop- people and include large numbers of low- ment resources in microcredit programs, and income people among its borrowers? This is a today we see that it's the most powerful tool. particularly important question because First, why does social diflerentiationthat ap- Discussant: Michael Walton,Director, Pov- pears both inequitable and often inefficient erty Reduction persist in the labor market? How does this This has been a terrific survey of issues in a differentiation interact with processes of very complicated area. I particularly want to structural change, and what is the role for underline at the start Guy Standing's point about the need for different kinds of data in discussing gender and the economy. 1first have a contextual comment: We seem to be struggling with the intersection between broad structural changes, both on the supply and demand sides-and the underlying insti- tutional power relations that define gender relations in society. Three kinds of structural change have clearly been important: For developing countries, afundamental demographictransition,which has a ma- jor impact on the amounts of time women are able to shift from work at or close to home-child-based work-to the outside world (assuming that women sustain their primary child care role). Michael Walton: We seem to be struggling with the irltersection between broad structural changes, both The long-term economic transformation on the supply and demand sides-and the underlving from field to factory and service jobs with institutional und power relations that define.gender a huge amount of urbanization and indus- relations in society. trialization. A highly topical but less clear issue sur- public action? The question of the feminiza- rounding globalization, which means, tion of industrial work-which has been among other things, rising integration, highly topical in East Asia in the past twenty possibly increased liberalization at local years-is relevant here. Its consequences for and international levels, and possibly ris- underlying gender relations is probably posi- ing fluctuations at the aggregate and local tive but not clear. All of the evidence indi- level. cates that women usually control significantly Place these structural changes against signifi- more income when they move into classic cant gender differentials that are highly vari- factory jobs. Another question is wife beating. able across societies. In most societies, a gut A study by Bloch and Rao interpreted this concern exists that gender differentials are violence in terms of the fundamental work- wrong, but the pace of change tends to be ings of, first, the marriage market, second, slow. options for outside work, and, third, educa- tion. The study also found there was no easy In that context, I'd like to discuss three ques- solution. Institutions, such as the marriage tions for which action and an agenda for pol- market, only change slowly. icy and research are needed: A second question is how do we approach the problem of abuse or exploitation of vulnerable people who move from the home into the factory or service sector? Two examples that correlate with urbanization and industrializa- tion are rising child prostitution, predomi- nantly of girls, and abuse of workers, again commonly but not exclusively women, par- ticularly neglect of health or safety. For vul- nerable groups, there is little role for unions to play as they are currently structured (because it is harder to organize in informal activities), but much potential for civic action by outside groups. A third question is how we deal with the management of security. The assertion that we are moving toward more flexibilization is only partly true because, in much of the world, a major shift is occurring from per- Marty Chen: We talked earlier about unpacking sonal informal contracts to more formal con- rlze boxes of lzousehold arid culture. 1think antlzro- pologists,feminist scholars of all kinds, and tracts. That's a central feature of the industri- economists should unpack markets. alization and urbanization process. At the same time, it is clear that in parts of the world, due to shifts in the patterns of technology or flexibility. This question has an important demand or due to partial retreats from old- gender dimension. When you design a pen- style patterns of protection, flexibility has in- sion scheme, how do you aggregate'?Do you creased. I don't believe, however, there is aggregate across men and women? In finan- necessarily a conflict between efficient, flexi- cial terms, doing so implies a major financial ble, competitive labor markets and patterns of transfer from men to women, because women social protection in general. Whether social work less and live longer. Another example is protection tends to reduce flexibility is a mat- maternity benefits. How does one design them ter of design. Protection consisting of restric- to manage the potential conflict of benefits tions on layoffs reduces flexibility. Unem- that increase the price of female labor relative ployment benefits are more likely to increase to men? I would like to raise a couple of points on Discussant: Marty Chen (Harvard Univer- globalization, which received less attention sity) than informalization and feminization. In In terms of the rapidly changing context of terms of globalization, I refer not just to labor women's work, I would endorse all the com- migration, but also to a new form of produc- ments of the panelists. To underline and para- tion, hollow corporations with global assem- phrase Guy Standing, we need to be sure that, bly lines and no real relationship between at the end of the century, we don't have capi- those who produce and those who distribute. talism without full employment, without a This form of production is a matter of grave welfare state, and without a social contract. concern to workers. Another concern is that, with globalization, formal types of activities actually form the economic decisionmaking about trade and in- base of the economy. The bulk of resources, vestment is moving from the nation state to knowledge, access, and market links, how- global levels. If nation states are having trou- ever, go to the more formal sector. ble negotiating that process, you can well We talked earlier about unpacking the boxes imagine what troubles the women's work of household and culture. I think anthropolo- force is facing. gists, feminist scholars of all kinds, and I would also like to comment on informaliza- economists also need to unpack markets. We tion. I think that informal work relations are still have a lot of work to do to understand increasing more than we realize, because they bargaining power within markets-who is are invisible. Here, I disagree with Guy above and who is below the so-called "level Standing. I think the official data sets also playing field" in markets that are becoming need improvement. On the one hand, if you increasingly global. work at home for a formal firm, you are clas- Empirically, as I said, official data sets are not sified as an out worker and unlikely to be adequate. Special studies are needed on all listed in an establishment survey. On the other kinds of contractual arrangements to get better hand, the official 1993definition of the in- formal statistics on the share of the work force formal sector does not allow out workers for working under different kinds of insecure formal firms to be classified as informal work relationships. workers. It is likely that out work will be clas- sified as house work as opposed to market Programmatically, how much can financial work. So, official statistics still have problems and nonfinancial services in the enterprise dealing with home-based work. field really do in this amazingly changing and complex context and how can we think about Micro studies suggest that home-based work the impact of microenterprise services if the is an important source of employment. In entire economy is being so rapidly trans- seven African countries, 55 to 77 percent of formed? A related problem is that the micro- enterprises are home based.' This work is, of enterprise field is only reaching informal en- course, especially important as a source of trepreneurs, not informal workers. Further- employment for women. Home-based work is more, if, as I would argue, the informal sector also significant in certain key industries, for is the base of the economy and women are the example, garments, footwear, electronics, and core of the informal sector, all policies have so on. Yet, this is not captured by official sta- implications, negative or positive, inadvertent tistics. or deliberate, for women in the informal What are some of the implications of this in- economy. We have to look at the legal, insti- formality? Analytically, growing informality tutional, policy, and regulatory environments. dispels the orthodox notion that, with growth, We have to be concerned about social protec- formal forms of employment and work in- tion systems with the decline of the welfare crease. It also dispels the notion that informal state and the increase in informal work con- types of work make up a survival sector. In tracts. fact, they contribute a significant share of key Finally, one point on the question of voice. I export industries. It also dispels the myth of think, that in addition to visibility, what we the dual economy, that no links exist between really need to find are ways for informal the informal and formal economy. Complex workers-the bulk of the women's work linkages exist between informal and formal force-to find voice and, yes, participate in firms, both in production and distribution. In- consultations at the World Bank. Voice is re- 38 lated to bargaining power. Trade unions are 1 . Martha Chen, Jennefer Sebstad, and Lesley finding ways now to reach out and organize. O'Connell. Forthcoming. "Counting the Invisible Workforce: The Case of Home-Based Workers" in a The formal trade unions are increasingly or- special issue of World Development. ganizing more informal workers, and there are alternative trade unions of informal workers. ing fewer and fewer people in the risk cate- gory- Lyn Squire opened the session to questions Marty Chen responded to a question on the and statements from the audience. control of income in a household and what One member of the audience asked how the can be done about it by saying that the ques- Bank can give voice to informal and domestic tion involves how much direct access women workers. are allowed, which has to do with cultural norms. If you're in a cultural context in which Lourdes Beneria added that nobody has men- male mediation to markets is important, the tioned the issue of legal and illegal duality. woman is going to hand over her loan to the The most difficult workers to deal with are man in the household to buy the goat or what- those who might be in the informal sector and ever. Control of income gets complicated by are also illegal. They do not get minimum wages. The workers themselves do not want the authorities to know, because it's illegal. Guy Standing addressed a question from the audience on pension. The Bank was heavily involved in the Polish pension reform, which introduced a three-pillar system with a means- tested state benefit at the base. This so-called guaranteed minimum pension is worth 28 per- cent of the average wage-subsubsistence level. That's where Hungary and other sys- tems are moving. That will be disproportion- ately focused on people who don't have long periods of paid employment in their adult life, which means that women are going to be relatively disadvantaged compared with men. In industrialized countries, the number of Lyn Squire: The question is, when looking at gender, years required to secure a full pension has what is it thut should be done differentlyin terms o f risen enormously-a form of tightening con- policy? The issues oj'~*iilnerabilityand risk are topics ditionality and selectivity. Internationally, that exemplifi what a policy research report should there has been a trend to tighten all the condi- stronglq.address. tions, which hits women more than men, be- cause they have greater difficulty satisfying the whole portfolio of activities, who's doing each of those tightened conditions. Becoming the shopping, and so on. more selective and conditional means reach- Michael Walton responded to a question from on the really crucial issues. Care should be the audience on how to obtain rapid feedback taken in using conventional statistics, but he in a rapidly changing world. He said that [the didn't see any reason for not speeding up data Bank?] is engaged in thinking about what collection and analysis. kind of information is needed on the East Asia Lyn Squire closed the session with some crisis- about combining use of existing in- comments on the 1999Policy Research Re- struments, some sort of local participatory in- port. Two criteria are used to select a topic: it struments, and either beefing up or introduc- must be high on the development agenda and ing possibly quarterly labor force surveys. there has to be something to say on the topic. Marguerite Berger added that you cannot ig- Whatever is said has to have firm empirical nore data needs, but, quite a lot of research substantiation. Thought is needed on causal has been done in the last twenty years and a factors that lead to gender differences. These picture is emerging on a number of issues. reports also try to give a policy message, so This might provide sufficient information in a policy relevance is key. The question is, when number of country contexts to focus on ex- looking at gender, what is it that should be panding opportunities and giving people a done differently in terms of policy? The issues voice in public decisionmaking in particular. of vulnerability and risk are topics that exem- plify what a policy research report should Guy Standing said that there are lots of differ- strongly address. He urged that those involved ent methodological answers to the question, in follow-up to the workshop make empirical but clearly key informant types of surveys, substantiation and policy relevance the center small-scale surveys can be used, rather than of their work. doing jumbo exercises. The focus should be