The past decade has witnessed a paradigm shift at the World Bank from a focus on structural adjustment to a focus on poverty reduction. As evidenced by the Banks 2001 report, "Engendering Development: Through Rights, Resource and Voice," an increased attention to gender issues has been an important part of this process.
This book brings together a range of responses from feminist economists and other social researchers on the issues raised in this report. With contributions from highly esteemed scholars such as Eudine Barriteau, Diane Elson, Gale Summerfield, and Zafiris Tzannatos, this anthology critically examines the relationships between gender, growth, development, and the World Bank by:
* developing a history of the World Banks perspectives on gender
* empirically evaluating the impacts of the Banks policies on three different regions of the world
* exploring the ideological and methodological commitments of the report from a variety of feminist and interdisciplinary social science perspectives
* enquiring into future directions for feminist economics research.
Highlighting the importance and challenge of taking gender into account in development theory and policy, the books complex and nuanced analyses of the social relations of gender in a global context make it an important resource for policymakers, activists and scholars alike.

The past decade has witnessed a paradigm shift at the World Bank from a focus on structural adjustment to a focus on poverty reduction. As evidenced by the Bank's 2001 report, "Engendering Development: Through Rights, Resource and Voice," an increased attention to gender issues has been an important part of this process. The premise of the report is that economic growth and development cannot be effectively addressed when gender inequality is not taken into account, because poverty increases gender inequalities and gender inequalities hinder economic development.
This book brings together a range of responses from feminist economists and other social researchers on the issues raised in this report. With contributions from highly esteemed scholars such as Eudine Barriteau, Diane Elson, Gale Summerfield, and Zafiris Tzannatos, this anthology critically examines the relationships between gender, growth, development, and the World Bank. It develops a history of the World Bank's perspectives on gender, empirically evaluates the impacts of the Bank's policies on three different regions of the world, explores the ideological and methodological commitments of the report from a variety of feminist and interdisciplinary social science perspectives, and inquires into future directions for feminist economics research.
The book shows the importance and challenge of taking gender into account in development theory and policy. Its complex and nuanced analyses of the social relations of gender in a global context will be an important resource for policymakers, activists, and scholars.

Feminist economists have demonstrated that interrogating hierarchies based on gender, ethnicity, class and nation results in an economics that is biased and more faithful to empirical evidence than are mainstream accounts.

This rigorous and comprehensive book examines many of the central philosophical questions and themes in feminist economics including
· History of economics
· Feminist science studies
· Identity and agency
· Caring labor
· Postcolonialism and postmodernism

With contributions from such leading figures as Nancy Folbre, Julie Nelson and Sandra Harding, Toward a Feminist Theory of Economics looks set to become the book on feminist economics for some time to come and will be greatly appreciated by all those interested in gender studies, economic methodology and social theory.

Feminist economists have demonstrated that interrogating hierarchies based on gender, ethnicity, class and nation results in an economics that is biased and more faithful to empirical evidence than are mainstream accounts.

This rigorous and comprehensive book examines many of the central philosophical questions and themes in feminist economics including
· History of economics
· Feminist science studies
· Identity and agency
· Caring labor
· Postcolonialism and postmodernism

With contributions from such leading figures as Nancy Folbre, Julie Nelson and Sandra Harding, Toward a Feminist Theory of Economics looks set to become the book on feminist economics for some time to come and will be greatly appreciated by all those interested in gender studies, economic methodology and social theory.

Edited by a leading scholar in the field, this is a new title in the Routledge Major Works series, Critical Concepts in Economics. It is a four-volume collection of historical and contemporary work in the flourishing field of feminist economics, an innovative and dynamic area of scholarship that broadens the scope of economic inquiry and allows a richer and more complex view of the ways in which economies function. The first two volumes of the collection consist of work done before the founding of the International Association for Feminist Economics in 1991 and are organized historically. The final two volumes consist of cutting-edge contemporary work in feminist economics and are organized thematically. This new Routledge title, edited by two leading scholars, is a four-volume collection of canonical and the very best cutting-edge work in feminist economics, an innovative and dynamic area of scholarship that has broadened the scope of economic inquiry and has allowed a richer and more complex understanding of the ways in which economies function. Volume I ('Early Conversations, 1800-1960') gathers foundational work produced before the professionalization and specialization of the social sciences by writers who were variously categorized as journalists, reformers, and-occasionally-as economists. Their writing provides important historical background on subjects such as household production, women's participations in paid labour, and gender equality, subjects that remain central to feminist economics today. Volume II ('Households, Labour, and Paid Work') brings together the best work by professional economists examining various aspects of women's labour both within and outside the domestic sphere. Topics include reproductive labour, caring labour, women's labour force participation, the gender wage gap, occupational segregation, and the economics of the family. Volume III ('Engendering Development and Economic Well-Being') assembles work with a specifically international or global perspective. Among the topics covered are: women and development; the gendered effects of structural adjustment; property rights; economic transformation; and measures of economic well-being. The final volume in the collection ('Epistemological and Methodological Considerations') focuses on a feminist rethinking of economics. Volume IV collects the best scholarship on methodology, the history of economics, and postmodern and postcolonial critiques of both feminist and conventional economics. Fully indexed and with a comprehensive introduction to each volume newly written by the editors, and an invited introduction to the final volume written by Gillian Hewitson, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Feminist Economics is an essential reference work. It is destined to be valued by scholars and students of economics-as well as those working in allied disciplines such as women's and gender studies-as a vital research resource.