Feminist Development Economics : An Institutional Approach to Household Analysis

Abstract

In this chapter, we argue that an institutional approach to feminist development economics provides deeper understandings to how gender inequalities function in economic processes in developing countries. We do this in three ways. First, we distinguish between symmetric and asymmetric gender institutions. Second, we distinguish gendered institutions between formal (laws and regulations) and informal ones (social norms and cultural practices). Third, we develop an empowerment model in which both resources and gendered institutions affect women’s wellbeing achievements, allowing for situations in which the positive effect of women’s access to resources is overruled by the negative effect of gendered laws or social norms. We illustrate our argument with a case study on the livelihoods of Yoruba women in Nigeria. The case study shows how gender norms result in an asymmetric institutional setting for women and men, even when norms about women’s labor force participation, individual control over income, and partners’ contribution to the household budget are symmetric. The combination of our theoretical contribution and our case study findings and test of the empowerment model in previous research have an important implication for a particular approach in feminist development economics, namely the household bargaining approach. This approach is widely used as an explanatory framework for women’s disadvantaged economic position in developing countries. We elaborate this approach with an institutional perspective and show how this helps to explain the economic position of women who find themselves in the paradoxical situation of strong economic independence in a highly unequal legal, social, and cultural context.