Incorporating a Gender Perspective
into Economic Research: A Conceptual
Framework
PEP Annual Conference 2017. Policy and Research
Forum. Nairobi, Kenya, June 14th
Overview
 What is a gender perspective?
 Structural sources of gender inequality
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The gender division of labor and segregated labor markets
Unequal access to assets, finance, and technology
Norms, identity, and discrimination
Intra-household dynamics
Violence and insecurity
 Incorporating gender into economic research
What is a gender perspective?
 Women and men occupy different positions in the economy
and are subject to different constraints.
 Policies and programs have different effects on women and
men.
 But a gender perspective goes beyond simply comparing
outcomes for women and men.
 Recognition of gendered processes and dynamics in the
economy.
 Expands the scope of what we mean by the “economy”.
Changes the way we measure the economy.
 e.g. Non-market, unpaid household work.
Why care about gender equality?
Intrinsic and instrumental approaches to gender
equality
 Intrinsic – important for social justice and wellbeing.
 Instrumental – important for achieving other
objectives
Structural sources of gender
inequality
Why structural?
 Look beyond individual choices to examine how women and men
are positioned differently in the economy.
 Choice is still important, but women and men face different
constraints.
Important for evaluating economic outcomes: e.g what do we
mean by inclusive growth?
The gender division of labor
Unpaid household work
 Non-market processes, not paid (although can be paid and involve
market exchanges: domestic workers)
 But important contribution to well-being and human development
Gender division of labor
 Women typically spend more time working in non-market, unpaid
activities compared to men.
Sources of inequality
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Less income/earning potential. Constrained choices.
Heightened risks from “specialization”
Lower returns to women’s education/less investment.
Economic contribution undervalued.
Segregated labor markets
Women are often concentrated in lower paying, more
precarious forms of employment.
 Relevant for both wage- and self-employment
 “Women’s work” and “men’s work”
Reinforces the gender division of labor
 Women earn less in paid employment and therefore specialize in
unpaid work
The need to combine unpaid and paid labor influences choices
with respect to livelihood strategies
Unequal access to assets, finance,
and technology
Financial markets often exclude women or are segregated
 Segregated financial markets: women only have access to
smaller-scale, informal, or marginal sources of credit.
Assets are often unequally distributed
 Land tenure and inheritance laws
 Reduces women’s earnings potential as operators of small-scale
enterprises
Women and men may have differential access to technology
 Norms regarding who operates equipment, who engages in
specific types of activities
Norms, identity, and discrimination
Norms regarding men’s and women’s role in society and the
economy can be powerful constraints.
 Costs of transgressing these norms may be larger for women
than men.
Collective identities and collective action
 There may be a collective interest in sustaining norms that
perpetuate gender inequalities (e.g. men, as a group, benefit
from norms that reinforce gender inequalities)
 Not fixed. Norms, conventions, and identities change over time.
Beyond a “taste for discrimination”
 Collective, not simply individual, dimensions
Intra-household dynamics
Households are critically important economic institutions
 Labor supply decisions, distribution of resources, poverty &
welfare outcomes.
Bargaining power and distributive outcomes
 Women may have a weaker fallback position than men.
Reinforces traditional gender roles.
 Access to income affects consumption patters in households with
important welfare implications (e.g. children)
Access to outside options improves women’s choices and
independence
 Access to paid employment/entrepreneurship linked to economic
empowerment
Violence and insecurity
Violence against women
 Imposes major limitations to choices and huge costs
Threats to security limit economic choices
 Travel to and from workplaces
 Harassment and safety at work
Insecurity represents a real cost to women’s labor force
participation and limits choice and mobility - but it is often not
recognized or well measured.
Gender inequalities and
enterprises
Gender earnings gaps
 Differences in earnings between women and men
 What factors explain this (segregation, assets, technology,
unpaid care work)?
Economic mobility
 The ability to take advantage of new opportunities as they
become available.
 How do constraints to mobility differ between women and men
(including youth)?
Gender inequalities and
enterprises (cont)
Skills and education gaps
 Why would there be under-investment in skills acquisition among
women? Example: vocational training programmes.
Supply chains and market power
 What relationships exist between enterprises (including various
intermediaries)?
 How are small enterprises inserted into supply chains and how
does this affect distributive dynamics?
 Are there differences between women and men? Example: do
men have better networks that advantage them in supply chains?
Incorporating a gender perspective
into research design
Need to be aware of gender dynamics and explicitly
incorporate this analysis into the design and conduct of
research.
 Also important for the interpretation of results
Requires examining new issues and economic dynamics
 e.g. relationship between unpaid household work and enterprise
development
Use both quantitative and qualitative research methods.
“Gender blind” research does not imply “gender neutral”
research
Some practical guidelines
 Try not to treat gender as a dummy variable
 Separate analysis for women and men
 Ask yourself: do the standard approaches contain hidden
biases? Do variable definitions reflect women’s contributions?
 Include gender-sensitive household variables
 Composition & unpaid household work
 Intra-household distribution can be important
 Who gets/controls what? Access to assets, finance, technology
 Recognize segregation by branch of activity
 Norms and values
 If information exists, include it.