Global crises not only deeply impact the economy and people's livelihoods, they also unsettle basic ideas and assumptions about the meaning and drivers of development. This collection of theoretical and empirical studies explores the substance and politics of policy change following the 2007/8 crisis from the perspective of developing countries.

Gender and development theory and analysis is replete with implicit assumptions that women's entry into the world of paid work will positively affect their status both in the household and in the public sphere. Until recently the debate on global factories and export production has remained focused on women's individual experience of export employment- and the extent to which this represents a positive opportunity or gross exploitation. In spite of the extended discussion of rights and citizenship in the global economy, little attention has hitherto been paid to the implications for women's entitlements arising out of their pivotal role in export sectors. Whilst many assume that women's visible and crucial presence in key economic sectors will be reflected in the ways in which social policies are formulated, there has been up to now little empirical and analytical engagement with this question. This volume, bringing together detailed commissioned studies from six developing countries, aims to fill this gap.

This book addresses the central questions of how social and economic rights have been historically constructed and shaped by processes of political change, economic structures and reforms, and institutional design and capacities. These conceptualizations and processes are deeply gendered even in contexts where formal political equality has been won, and while gender is a persistent marker of difference across these regions, it intersects in a variety of ways with other axes of difference such as class, race and age. The book illustrates the importance of thinking beyond states and markets in social provisioning, including in its analysis the interactions between these and other social institutions such as family and community.

Global crises not only deeply impact the economy and people's livelihoods, they also unsettle basic ideas and assumptions about the meaning and drivers of development. This collection of theoretical and empirical studies explores the substance and politics of policy change following the 2007/8 crisis from the perspective of developing countries.

This book illustrates why both academic research and policy thinking need to factor-in gender hierarchies and structures if they are to address some of the key challenges of contemporary societies: the widespread informality and insecurity of paid work and the crisis of care.