Part 1 - It's Not Just Biology
In this first lecture in the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s “Feminist Economics” series, Professor Jayati Ghosh introduces the importance of a gender perspective in economics. It begins with the recognition of "care work", that is the unpaid labor time undertaken primarily by women in the care of children and other members of the family. This produces a gender division of labor and construction of society, which gives men priority in the formal economic sphere and relegates women to an auxiliary or peripheral role. As a result, women are a unique type of economic actor, as care work is often not accounted for in economic theory, measures, or policy. Yet the rest of the economy could not operate without it. Our understanding of the economy, prosperity, and poverty remains incomplete.
