The Gender Of Capital

Two leading social scientists examine the gender wealth gap in countries with officially egalitarian property law, showing how legal professionals—wittingly and unwittingly—help rich families and men maintain their privilege. In many countries, property law grants equal rights to men and women. Why, then, do women still accumulate less wealth than men? Combining quantitative, ethnographic, and archival research, The Gender of Capital explains how and why, in every class of society, women are economically disadvantaged with respect to their husbands, fathers, and brothers. The reasons lie with the unfair economic arrangements that play out in divorce proceedings, estate planning, and other crucial situations where law and family life intersect. Céline Bessière and Sibylle Gollac argue that, whatever the law intends, too many outcomes are imprinted with unthought sexism. In private decisions, old habits die hard: families continue to allocate resources disproportionately to benefit boys and men. Meanwhile, the legal profession remains in thrall to assumptions that reinforce gender inequality. Bessière and Gollac marshal a range of economic data documenting these biases. They also examine scores of family histories and interview family members, lawyers, and notaries to identify the accounting tricks that tip the scales in favor of men. Women across the class spectrum—from poor single mothers to MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos—can face systematic economic disadvantages in divorce cases. The same is true in matters of inheritance and succession in family-owned businesses. Moreover, these disadvantages perpetuate broader social disparities beyond gender inequality. As Bessière and Gollac make clear, the appropriation of capital by men has helped to secure the rigid hierarchies of contemporary class society itself.

Human Capital in Gender and Development addresses timely feminist debates about the relationship between feminism, neoliberalism, and international development. The book engages with human capital theory, a labour economics theory associated with the Chicago School that now animates a wide range of political and economic governance. The book argues that human capital theory has been instrumental in constructing an economistic vision of gender equality as a tool for economic growth, and girls and women of the global South as the quintessential entrepreneurs of the post-global financial crisis era. The book’s critique of human capital theory and its role in Gender and Development gives insights into the kinds of development interventions that typify the ‘Gender Equality as Smart Economics’ agenda of the World Bank and other international development institutions. From the World Bank, to NGOs, and private businesses, discourses about the economic benefits of gender equality and women’s empowerment underpin a range of development interventions that aim to unlock the ‘untapped’ potential of the world’s women. Its implications are both conceptual and material, producing more interventionist forms of development governance, increased power by private sector actors in development, and de-politicization of gender equality issues. Human Capital in Gender and Development will be of particular interest to feminist scholars in Politics, International Relations, Development Studies, and Human Geography. It will also be a useful resource for teaching key debates about feminism, neoliberalism, and international development.

Drawing on interviews with nurses, social workers, exotic dancers and hairdressers, this book explores the processes involved in producing and reproducing gendered and classed workers and occupations.

The volume brings together a stellar group of contributors who examine the social capital thesis by means of four different approaches: theoretical, historical, comparative, and empirical. In the end, this book will serve to answer two fundamental questions which have hitherto been neglected: What can a gendered analysis tell us about social capital? And what can social capital tell us about women and politics?

In countries with officially egalitarian property law, women still accumulate less wealth than men. Combining quantitative, ethnographic, and archival research, The Gender of Capital explains how and why women of all classes are economically disadvantaged at crucial junctures in family life such as divorce, inheritance, and succession.

The Indian state of Kerala has invoked much attention within development and gender debates, specifically in relation to its female capital- an outcome of interrelated historical, cultural and social practices. On the one hand, Kerala has been romanticised, with its citizenry, particularly women, being free of social divisions and uplifted through educational well-being. On the other hand, its realism is stark, particularly in the light of recent social changes. Using a Bourdieusian frame of analysis, Development and Gender Capital in India explores the forces of globalisation and how they are embedded within power structures. Through narratives of women’s lived experiences in the private and public domains, it highlights the ‘anomie of gender’ through complexities and contradictions vis-à-vis processes of modernity, development and globalisation. By demonstrating the limits placed upon gender capital by structures of patriarchy and domination, it argues that discussions about the empowered Malayalee women should move from a mere ‘politics of rhetoric and representation’ to a more embedded ‘politics of transformation’, meaningfully taking into account women’s changing roles and identities. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Development Studies, Gender Studies, Anthropology and Sociology.

In today’s climate, academics, professional community and policy makers all have input in critical gender issues, as well as in the entrepreneurship and human capital issues. Various gender issues are published involving many scientific fields, including business, management and accounting research. Presenting the topic of gender issues, entrepreneurship and human capital, this book collects the main output of the researches presented at the Annual Workshop of IPAZIA 2019 of Rome in Italy. The authors provide a renewed and fruitful analysis of these topics, with the purpose of advancing the gender theories in the international context.