Page 1TitlesTo my mother who, as she approaches her ninth COLORADO STATE cop.cX..- Page 2Titles1 Page 3TitlesWomen and development The principal themes Page 4Titles4 Women and development in the Third World ~ ~~ ~~ ... '" - '" *5~~ ~~~ ~ &. ... "s '" ~.g ~~ .,,-.g ,~ .3 i~ ~-s .~ E 05 ~6 ~~ ~~ "'­ sO ~~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~t; ~~ ....,~ oo.n ~:8 ~:2 ~~ ~~ -~ - .:: ~ ~ ,§ ~j8~Z~~~ ~ ~ v: r-: - :2 - - :8 ~~ ~...., ~§ ~...., ~~ ~ ... ::: '" ... - '" ~ '" e ~ :e c -g 5~'e ... '" Page 5Titles6 Women and development in the Third World Key ideas 2 Page 6Titles- ~ "" ~ ~ l The sex ratio 9 Survival TablesTable 1Page 7Titles10 Women and development in the Third World The sex ratio in South Asia TablesTable 1Page 8TitlesBangladesh - discrimination within a slum household 2t .. , . " ~ A~6' cfo-::: ~ :. o~.P~ ~ >:::::: L~ '" '" TablesTable 1Table 2Page 9Titles14 Women and development in the Third World Case study A (continued) The sex ratio 15 Case study A (continued) Economic status Page 10Page 11Titles18 Women and development in the Third World TablesTable 1Page 12Titles20 Women and development in the Third World r The sex ratio 21 International migration Page 13Titles22 Women and development in the Third World Effects of out-migration on rural areas The sex ratio 23 Case study B Sex-specific migration and its effects on Lesotho Page 14Titles24 Women and development in the Third World The sex ratio 25 Case study B (continued) Case study B (continued) Female-headed households TablesTable 1Page 15Titles,~~. Page 16Titles3 Reproduction 29 Page 17Titles30 Women and development in the Third World Biological reproduction Reproduction 31 Page 18Titles32 Women and development in the Third World Reproduction 33 Case study C The unengaging impact of education in Singapore Page 19Titles34 Women and development in the Third World Case study C (continued) Reproduction 35 Case study C (continued) Education Page 20Titles~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ II~CjD ~ Reproduction 37 Social reproduction Page 21Titles38 Women and development in the Third World Reproduction 39 Page 22Titles40 Women and development in the Third World Reproduction 41 TablesTable 1Table 2Page 231IntroductionThe development process affects women and men differentially. The aftereffects of colonialism and the peripheral position of Third World countriesin the world economy exacerbate the effects of sexual discrimination onwomen. The penetration of capitalism, leading to the modernization andrestructuring of traditional economies, often increases the disadvantagessuffered by women as the modern sector takes over many of theeconomic activities, such as food processing and making of clothes,which had long been the means by which women supported themselvesand their families. A majority of the new and better-paid jobs go to menbut male income is less likely to be spent on the family.Modernization of agriculture has altered the division of labourbetween the sexes, increasing women's dependent status as well as theirworkload. Women often lose control over resources such as land andare generally excluded from access to new technology. Male mobility ishigher than female, both between places and between Jobs, and morewomen are being left alone to support children. Women in the ThirdWorld now carry a double or even triple burden of work as they copewith housework, childcare and subsistence food production, in additionto an expanding involvement in paid employment. Everywhere womenwork longer hours than men. How women cope with declining status,heavier work burdens and growing impoverishment is crucial to thesuccess of development policies in the Third World.Women constitute almost half the world's population but even tqdaythere are 80 million fewer girls than boys enrolled in school. Women2 Women and development in the Third WorldIntroduction 3carry the burden of two-thirds of the total hours of work performed. Forthis they earn a mere 10 per cent of the world's income and own but 1per cent of the property. Women produce more than half of the locally-grown food in developing countries and as much as 80 per cent inAfrica.Within these broad generalizations women's lives in different placesshow great variation: most typists in Martinique are women but this isnot so in Madras, just as women make up the vast majority of domesticservants in Lima but not in Lagos. Nearly 90 per cent of sales workers inAccra are women but this proportion falls to a bare 1 per cent inAlgeria. In every country, the jobs done predominantly by women arethe least well paid and have the lowest status. Clearly female and maleroles are neither equal nor fixed. They differ from place to place and thisspatial variation is most marked in the Third World. The relationshipbetween these spatial patterns and development is the theme of thisbook.Forty years ago, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rightsreaffirmed the belief in the equal rights of men and women, first laiddown by the nations of the world in the Charter of the United Nations.Today it is clear that progress towards equality for women in most partsof the world is considerably less than that which was promised.However, disparities between women in different countries are greaterthan those between men and women in anyone country. Life expec-tancy at birth for women varies from 74 years in Cuba to 43 in Chad.The proportion of illiterates in the female population varies from 99 percent in Ethiopia to less than 1 per cent in Barbados. Even withinindividual countries women are not a homogeneous group but can bedifferentiated by class, ethnicity and life stage. Thus the range on mostsocio-economic measures is wider for women than for men and isgreatest among the countries of the Third World.We have now reached the end of the United Nations Third Develop-ment Decade while the Decade for Women culminated in a conferencein Nairobi in 1985. At the conclusion of the first two DevelopmentDecades it was found that the extent of poverty, disease, illiteracy andunemployment in the Third World had increased. During the 1980s wehave witnessed unprecedented growth of Third World debt and acutefamine in Africa. Similarly the Decade for Women saw only very limitedchanges in patriarchal attitudes, that is institutionalized male domi-nance, and few areas where modernization was associated with areversal of the overwhelming subordination of women.Yet despite the apparent lack of change, the United Nations Decadefor Women achieved a new awareness of the