Gender and Development (2000 - 2009)

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PAGE DESCRIBES THE PREVIOUS UNRISD RESEARCH PROGRAMME ON GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT

For the current programme of work, please click here.

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In recent decades the presence of women in public life has grown, whether in politics, in the workforce, or in the migrant streams that cross international borders. At the same time, the intensive engagement of activists and researchers with the development establishment has turned "gender" into a legitimate policy issue for institutions and movements operating at different levels. Yet gender inequalities in power continue to be a persistent and integral feature of the modern world and its institutions - whether markets and macroeconomic flows; states, political parties and social movements; or the intimate sphere of family, household and community. Transformative agendas of social change are constrained not only by the continued dominance of market orthodoxy in some important arenas of policy making, but also by shifts in geopolitics, and new forms of religious and cultural politics that are being played out at global, national and sub-national levels.

For the new research phase, the following thematic areas have been identified:

Labour Market Informality, Social Policy and Gender
Gender-egalitarian Policy Change: States and Women's Claims-making
Political and Social Economy of Care
Religion, Politics and Gender Equality

These four projects are being developed in a sequential manner. Full funding for the Political and Social Economy of Care and Religion, Politics and Gender Equality projects has been secured and work under this area is underway. The other two projects are still at a preliminary stage.

Also, United Nations Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and Routledge are bringing out a new series of books that engages with a wide range of contested issues—politics and governance, identity and conflict, welfare state and social policy reform, markets and macroeconomics, the care economy, migration and social rights—through a gender lens and with insights gained from feminist theory. The series is intended for scholars and students of gender studies, development studies, comparative politics and related disciplines. For more information on this series, please click here.