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Ottaviano G I P, Puga D 1998 Agglomeration in the global
economy: A survey of the ‘new economic geography.’ The
World Economy 21: 707–31
Peck J 1996 Work-Place: The Social Regulation of Labor
Markets. Guilford Press, New York
Peet R, Thrift N 1989 Political economy and human geography.
In: Peet R, Thrift N (eds.) New Models in Geography.
Blackwell, Oxford, UK, pp. 3–29
Pinch S, Henry N 1999 Paul Krugman’s geographical economics,
industrial clustering and the British motor sport industry.
Regional Studies 33: 815–27
Sayer A, Walker R 1992 The New Social Economy: Reworking
the Di
ision of Labor. Blackwell, Oxford, UK
Scott A J 1998 Regions and the World Economy. Oxford
University Press, Oxford, UK
Sheppard E, Plummer P S, Haining R P 1998 On economists
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Storper M 1997 The Regional World. Guilford Press, New York
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ing Postwar Capitalism. Guilford Press, New York
E. J. Malecki
Economic Globalization and Gender
Economic globalization and gender is a topic that has
grown in importance since the1970s. Although ‘glob-
alization’ has occurred in specific periods for centuries,
it was not until the early 1970s that attention was drawn
to the importance of understanding the gendered
effects of economic globalization and, in turn, their
implications for sustainable human development.
1. Definition and Context
Economic globalization involves a wide variety of
processes, opportunities, and problems related to the
spread of economic activities among countries around
the world. There have been many periods in which it
occurred, most recently including the latter nineteenth
century to WWI, the quarter century after WWII, and
the late 1960s\early 1970s to the present.
The latest period has involved several major trends,
as capitalism has spread throughout more of the
world. First, there has been an increased reliance on
markets (versus government involvement in the econ-
omy) by most nations (including industrialized
countries, developing countries, and formerly socialist
countries like China with over one-fifth of the world’s
population). Second, many developing countries have
shifted to the more open export-oriented approach
based on production for external trade from an import
substitution development strategy (production of es-
sential goods for the internal market). Third, multi-
national corporations (MNCs) in manufacturing,
service, and finance sectors have moved into new tiers
of countries and have established burgeoning net-
works of subcontractors in many areas. Fourth, since
the late 1970s, economic globalization has also in-
volved structural adjustment policies (SAPs), man-
dated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a
condition for granting countries loans. SAPs require
governments to take many steps that further promote
globalization. They also require austerity measures
that fall heavily on the poor, particularly women.
Fifth, there have been shifts in the power of key
institutions internationally. On the one hand, the
influence of many national governments has been
eroded by the rising importance of institutions like the
MNCs, the IMF, and World Bank (WB), and trade
organizations such as the World Trade Organization
(WTO). On the other hand, there has been an increase
in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) advo-
cating for the rights of groups of citizens (see Pyle 1999
for more information regarding each of these five
trends).
Economic globalization has involved an increase in
the international movements of goods and services,
capital (portfolio investments or foreign direct in-
vestment by MNCs), and labor as people migrate for
employment. This phase of globalization has been
particularly facilitated by changes in technology
(telecommunications and information technology)
and transportation (UNDP 1999). It is often charac-
terized as ‘neoliberalism’ because it is putatively based
on increased reliance on markets (and correspondingly
less on governments), liberalization of trade and
investment policies, and a growing openness among
economies. However, economic globalization has oc-
curred in a very uneven manner. Countries are
integrated into the global economy to very different
degrees (UNDP 1999). This has resulted in rising
inequality and tension, which are increasingly con-
sidered the flip side of the increased reliance on market
forces and the changes in the international power
structure. In the 1970s, scholars began to explore the
gendered impacts of changes in the global economy.
Gender has both a biological dimension (categoriza-
tion as male or female) and socially constructed
components. The latter reflect a society’s views re-
garding appropriate roles for men and women and are
reinforced by economic, political, social, cultural, and
religious institutions. Global organizations such as
MNCs and the IMF often use these social construc-
tions to their advantage; however, globalization can
undermine them or cause them to be more firmly
defended. This article outlines the importance of the
evolving study of the gendered impacts of economic
globalization, the current issues regarding research,
theory, and methodology, and likely future directions.
4089
Economic Globalization and Gender
2. History and Changing Emphases
Before the 1970s, women or gender issues were rarely
mentioned in the development literature. That
changed with the publication of Boserup’s (1970)
book Woman’s Role in Economic De
elopment. Most
regard this as a turning point that spurred thinking
about women in the development process and initiated
what has become a very large literature. The con-
ceptual approaches taken and the strategies for change
they imply have, however, changed over the years.
Scholars and activists associated with the Women in
Development (WID) approach of the 1970s sought to
make women’s roles visible. Women’s issues typically
were tacked on to existing approaches or institutions,
however, rather than fundamentally integrated. WID
focused on individuals and on fostering change within
existing structures. Seeing these limitations, others
developed a focus on gender. This approach empha-
sized unequal power relations between men and
women and the ways they are institutionalized in
households, culture, schools and religious organiza-
tions, the state, and international organizations. (See
Kabeer 1994 and Visvanathan et al. 1997 for more
information on this history; see Visvanathan et al.
1997 for selected readings.)
In the 1990s, the international political economy
changed considerably with the ending of the Cold War
and the impetus this provided to all the dimensions of
globalization listed above. The discourse shifted to
examination of the gendered impacts of economic
globalization, broadening the focus to include
gendered effects in all countries—industrialized and
formerly socialist as well as those the development
literature has concentrated on—and adding important
dimensions to the analysis. For example, since
globalization has involved increasing movements of
people as well as goods, services, and capital, many
industrialized countries have immigrants from de-
veloping countries who have been profoundly affected
by these forces. This conceptualization includes them.
In spite of these substantive changes, and although
gender increasingly is recognized as a relevant per-
spective, there continued to be a lack of attention to
gender in the 1990s by most economists and many
sociologists specializing in the study of development
or globalization. Feminists continued to break new
ground, however, in exploring these issues. Feminist
sociologists have long critiqued approaches to de-
velopment such as modernization, dependency, and
world systems theories. (See Ward 1993 for an example
regarding the world system approach.) Feminist
economists have asked new types of questions,
transformed some traditional economic approaches to
include gender, and posed alternative approaches to
development (Beneria 1995, 1999, Sen and Grown
1987, World Development 1995). Many now recognize
the critical importance of understanding the gendered
impact of these dimensions of economic globaliza-
4090
tion—and their impact, in turn, on growth and
sustainable human development. For example, it has
been found that low investment in women’s education,
often a result of SAPs, can hinder a country’s
economic growth (World Bank 2001).
These conceptual changes and the activism they
spawned since the 1970s have fostered the rise of
NGOs, many of which were founded to alleviate the
effects of globalization and to address women’s needs.
International institutions have been forced to incor-
porate gender issues into their thinking, planning, and
programs. The United Nations designated 1975 the
International Year for Women. It held World Con-
ferences on Women in 1975, 1980, 1985, and 1995,
bringing people together from around the world to
assess the status of women and draft policy recom-
mendations to address gender inequalities. Special
divisions have been established within the UN and the
WB; considerable information and data have been
collected (United Nations 2000). The United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) has emphasized
human development throughout the 1990s; its annual
Human De
elopment Report focused on gender and
human security in 1995 and globalization with a
human face in 1999 (UNDP 1995, 1999).
There have been critiques of the efforts of these
institutions to mainstream gender issues. In response,
these organizations have developed more inclusive
approaches, engaged experts in the field of gender and
development as employees or consultants, and es-
tablished substantive websites to disseminate infor-
mation and invite discussion. The UN sponsored
Beijing Plus 5 in 2000 to assess progress for women
since the 1995 Conference on Women in China. The
WB published a new report that focuses on the
importance of gender for development and examines
the factors that affect gender equality (WB 2001).
Particularly active in advocating for women is the
United Nations Development Fund for Women
(UNIFEM), which grew out of the First World
Conference on Women. UNIFEM Director Heyzer
drafted an Agenda for Women in the twenty-first
century (Heyzer 1995). UNIFEM’s new volume
(UNIFEM 2000) is designed to help women hold
powerful institutions accountable for gendered out-
comes of globalization—including the UN, IMF and
WB, MNCs and other businesses, and civil society
organizations such as unions, community-based
groups, and business or professional associations.
3. Current Issues
Because economic globalization and gender is a broad
topic with multiple dimensions, this section can only
highlight some of the key issues scholars and activists
are addressing regarding research, theory, and meth-
odology. Newer work is beginning to cross disciplinary
boundaries, offering opportunities to examine the

gendered effects of globalization from perspectives
that may include economics, sociology, political sci-
ence, gender studies, or anthropology. Increasingly,
women from the Third World are shaping the
questions asked, the type of research conducted, the
methodologies used, the policy recommendations
suggested, and the activist endeavors undertaken
(Heyzer 1995, Kabeer 1994, Sen and Grown 1987).
As economic activities become more global, some
benefit, but the hardships of many others are
increased. There are many aspects that can be con-
sidered in assessing the differing effects of globalization
on men’s and women’s income earning opportunities
and household economic responsibilities—including
access to employment in formal or informal sector
jobs, wages and earnings (relative to the amount
required for a reasonable standard of living), the types
of occupations, job conditions (health and safety,
rights to organize, work-life balance), opportunities
for skill acquisition and promotion, and the effects of
all these on one’s position in the household and
community. The analysis is complicated, however,
because research reveals that the impact also varies by
class, race\ethnicity, age, and other attributes. Iron-
ically, although technological advances are a foun-
dation of this phase of globalization, and even though
technology offers a possible means for women to
access information, develop broader networks of
support, and increase their standards of living, women
do not have the necessary access and are not receiving
equal benefits of technological advances.
The internationalization of basic economic activ-
ities—production, trade, and finance—produces
effects that differ by gender. The globalization of trade
can have divergent effects on women. For example, if
women work in sectors producing goods for inter-
national trade, they may benefit from economic
globalization—as long as they make a living wage and
their employer (often a MNC or its subcontractor)
remains in their area. Many female small business
owners are forced out of business by the cheaper
imports that trade liberalization brings. Gender dif-
ferences in the impact of trade typically have not been
considered as trade organizations such as the WTO
formulate policies.
Much production (clothing, electronics, toys, shoes,
and sporting goods) and provision of services (data
entry, reservations, business services) have moved
internationally, becoming part of the ‘global assembly
line.’ Many MNCs prefer lower cost women workers
who they believe are unlikely to resist adverse con-
ditions. Women working in MNCs or their sub-
contracting networks often consider this employment
a better option than otherwise available. However,
working conditions can be oppressive, characterized
by long hours, fast pace, few breaks, no opportunities
for advancement, harassment, and unsafe and un-
healthy workplaces. In addition, such employment is
precarious. When labor costs rise as workers seek to
Economic Globalization and Gender
improve their conditions, MNCs use some combi-
nation of automating and new technologies, sup-
pressing worker demands, moving to other developing
countries with lower labor costs, or establishing
subcontracting networks where workers are lower cost
and can be terminated immediately. These strategies
typically have adverse effects on women.
Financial globalization involves not only foreign
direct investment by MNCs but also portfolio in-
vestment (buying\selling of stocks) and international
loans and aid. As conditions for receiving loans, the
IMF and WB typically require countries to adopt
SAPs. These involve opening their borders to foreign
trade and cutting government employment and
expenditures on health, education, housing, and food
subsidies. The IMF argues these policies will increase
revenues needed for loan repayment. The effects of
SAPs fall heavily on women, however, who try to
maintain their families’ standards of living. They take
on added household responsibilities (to compensate
for decreased government services) and obtain extra
income earning activities, often in the informal sector.
As a result of these economic aspects of global-
ization, many women are increasingly pushed into
the informal economy (Moghadam 1998, Pyle 1999).
Poverty levels rise. Large numbers of women, par-
ticularly from lower-income Asian countries, are
forced to migrate internationally to find employment,
often leaving families behind. Women in many
countries must resort to earning a living as domestics
or sex workers. Conditions in these occupations can be
highly exploitative.
As a result of background studies in these areas,
scholars are developing a broader theoretical under-
standing of the systemic linkages among the global
expansion of capitalist production, trade, and finance
and the increases of women in the informal sector,
rising inequality and female poverty, and higher levels
of female migration (Pyle 1999). Feminist perspectives
are being used to question and transform orthodox
models of human behavior and, in turn, their impli-
cations for understanding the gendered impacts of
globalization (Beneria 1999).
Research on economic globalization and gender
involves problems, however, that include: gaining
acceptance for new concepts that challenge and replace
traditional views, operationalizing concepts empiri-
cally, obtaining appropriate data, developing alterna-
tive policies, and fundamentally reconsidering the
usefulness of current approaches and institutions
(whether they can be transformed or new ones are
needed). For example, the reconceptualization of
women’s ‘work’ to include unpaid work in the house-
hold is controversial; there are conflicts about how to
measure and value it. In addition, to adequately
examine the gendered effects of globalization, data
that measure the desired concepts and is comparable
cross-country must be available. However, many
countries have little data available; in others, in-
4091
Economic Globalization and Gender
formation may be incomplete or of questionable
quality.
There are the dilemmas involved in developing
alternatives to policies like SAPs. Such innovative
policies would enable countries to obtain loans but the
focus would be on how to foster sustainable human
development and gender equality rather than on how
to ensure loan repayment. There is also the key
question of what the focus of strategies for change
should be—whether on changing the individual’s
position or the group’s (and, if the group, at what
level—family, community, nation, region, inter-
national) and whether to increase women’s capabilities
or confront the social, economic, and political struc-
tures that disadvantage or discriminate against fe-
males. This is particularly important to think carefully
about, given the context of the larger shift in the
distribution of power (from national governments to
MNCs and international organizations like the IMF).
4. Future Directions
In the future, there will be continued progress in the
creation of concepts and theories that enhance our
understanding of the gendered impacts of globaliza-
tion and the importance of these effects for sustainable
human development. This work will be based on new
ways of looking at issues, a wider array of studies of
the gendered effects of globalization, and analyses that
examine the more nuanced and complex patterns that
emerge from such studies. This research may also
involve the generation of new methodologies. As in
the past, these concepts and theories will be important
for developing strategies for change.
To illustrate each of these points briefly, scholars
and activists will continue to develop and extend new
concepts and perspectives. For example, concepts such
as ‘caring labor’ will be acknowledged, respected, and
utilized more widely (UNDP 1999). There will be
increased attention to the gender dimensions of the
insecurity created by globalization. Beneria is exam-
ining women’s security globally, focusing on women’s
different employment problems, paid\unpaid labor
share, female-headed households, and economic
restructuring. By fully understanding the many aspects
of insecurity, better policies can be developed to
address them.
Newer methodologies may be developed based on
these innovative conceptualizations and perspectives;
existing methods will be extended and made more
gender sensitive. For example, work will continue on
the construction of broader indicators that measure
women’s well-being, economic security, and progress
in participating more fully in economic, political, and
social life.
Each of the issues outlined in the last section will be
more fully studied at many levels of analysis—from
the household level to the international. Multilevel
4092
analyses reveal more of the two-way linkages between
the micro- and macrolevels. Not only do macro-
economic changes have gendered impacts on people
and households at the microlevel, but microlevel
processes contribute to macroeconomic well-being.
For example, studies have shown that when women
have access to income (a microlevel event often shaped
by macrolevel forces), their children are healthier and
better educated and, in turn, contribute more to
sustainable development (WB 2001).
Case studies that explore the gendered effects of
globalization on people who differ by culture, race\
ethnicity, class, age, sector, and region as well as sex
will shed considerable light on the role of these factors
in shaping the gendered effects of economic global-
ization. This will provide insight into what broader
socioeconomic changes may be needed for more
gender equality as globalization continues.
Along with these advances, there will be continued
fundamental challenges to disciplines that study de-
velopment and globalization and their theoretical
underpinnings (Beneria 1999). Disciplinary ap-
proaches will be recast to integrate gender perspect-
ives; new interdisciplinary paradigms or areas of study
may be created.
Women will continue to resist adverse effects of
globalization and seek to improve their positions.
Creative strategies will be crafted to enhance women’s
capabilities, empower them, and increase their socio-
economic security. These approaches will include
access to and creative use of new technologies. NGOs
will extend their work in these areas—not only locally
or within a country, but increasingly at national,
regional, or international levels. For example, as the
gendered effects of globalization are more widely
recognized, people in similar jobs or situations world-
wide (e.g., sweatshops) may form alliances in order to
address the problems they face.
There will be efforts to increase women’s voices at
all levels of government and develop ways to
strengthen the state, an institution that can still be
important for garnering the benefits and combating
the problems of worldwide economic changes al-
though its power has been eroded by forces such as
MNCs and the IMF’s structural adjustment policies.
There may be continued changes in the level of
awareness of gendered effects of globalization by
international institutions (WB and IMF, UN and its
many divisions, and the ILO) and in their interest and
ability to design programs and policies to alleviate the
adverse impacts. It is also possible that entirely new
forms of global governance will be created that are
more gender aware and focus on human development
(health, education, safety, and opportunities for em-
ployment and income earning) rather than on finance
and trade (UNDP 1999).
See also: Boserup, Ester (1910–99); Economic Devel-
opment and Women; Gender and Feminist Studies in

Economics; Gender and Place; Gender, Economics of;
Gender Ideology: Cross-cultural Aspects; Islam and
Gender; Labor Markets, Labor Movements, and
Gender in Developing Nations; Land Rights
and Gender; Lone Mothers in Nations of the South;
Nation-states, Nationalism, and Gender; Poverty and
Gender in Developing Nations; Reproductive Rights
in Developing Nations; Rural Industrialization in
Developing Nations and Gender
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economics. World De
elopment (special issue) 23: 1839–50
Beneria L 1999 Globalization, gender and the Davos Man.
Feminist Economics 5(3): 61–83
Boserup E 1970 Woman’s Role in Economic De
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Martin’s Press, New York
Cagatay N, Elson D, Grown C (eds.) 1995 Gender adjustment
and macroeconomics. World De
elopment 23(11)
Heyzer N 1995 A women’s development agenda for the 21st
century. In: Heyzer N (ed.) Commitment to the World’s
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Kabeer N 1994 Re
ersed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in
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elopment Thought. Verso, London
Moghadam V 1998 Gender and the global economy. In: Lorber
J, Ferree M M, Hess B (eds.) Re
isioning Gender. Sage,
Thousand Oaks, CA
Pyle J 1999 Third world women and global restructuring. In:
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J. L. Pyle
Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Economic Growth: Measurement
Economic growth is the sustained increase in welfare
of an economy—nation, region, city—together with
the ongoing changes in that economy’s industrial
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
Economic Growth: Measurement
structure; public health, literacy, and demography;
and distribution of income. In the long run, as this
economic transformation evolves, so do social, pol-
itical, and cultural norms. Societies change profoundly
and multidimensionally, as economic performance
improves.
To measure economic growth is to quantify this
increase in welfare and to endow with numerical
precision these large-scale economic and social
changes. Given the breadth of possibilities, it is
impossible to undertake this measurement exercise
without guidance—what can be pared away, what is
essential—from some view on the causes of growth
(see, e.g., Economic Growth: Theory).
This article sets down some key (measurement) facts
concerning economic growth, and documents how
they have evolved, if at all, over time. In doing this, the
article attempts also to illustrate the historical in-
terplay between two lines of research, measurement of
and theories about economic growth, each influencing
the other.
1. National Income
The panorama above of profound social and economic
changes can be simplified dramatically by concen-
trating on just a single key economic variable, income
per capita. (We will return in Sect. 8 below to issues of
broader structural transformations).
Income per capita is the per head measure of the
total value of all goods and services produced in an
economy. Taking national income—measured by ei-
ther gross national product (GNP) or gross domestic
product (GDP), or its regional counterpart—and
dividing it by population in the appropriate nation or
region gives a convenient first measure on the state of
economic well-being. Since total income is the same as
total output, this measure might sometimes be usefully
replaced by output per worker, or labor producti
ity,
where the denominator is then the size of the labor
force; or, even output per worker-hour, where the
measure then takes into account the time spent
working by the labor force.
In some detailed analyses, these alternatives can
provide different useful insights into economic perfor-
mance—different countries, at different times, have
had their labor force markedly different from their
population, or have had workers and firms make
different choices on the length of their workday.
However, for the kind of long-horizon, large-scale
developments that are typically of interest in economic
growth, these differences are inessential. Potentially
more important is whether this one measure can
suitably proxy for the wide spectrum of different
variables of concern in economic growth.
Across countries, per capita income is positively
correlated with a broad range of alternative indicators
for economic performance—including life expectancy,
(the negative of ) infant mortality, and adult literacy
4093
ISBN: 0-08-043076-7