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Gender and Structural Adjustment in Pakistan
Shahrukh Rafi Khan and Mehnaz Ahmad
Published:October 1996
We review the change in the socio-economic condition of women
during the intensive period of structural adjustment (1987/88 onwards) in
their role as producers, as home managers and as mothers. In their role as
producers, overall female labour force participation increased such that their
share in the labour force virtually tripled. However, over this period there
has also been a dramatic decline in female self-employment and a more
dramatic rise in the female unemployment rate. In their role as home
managers, women confronted a more than doubling of the sensitive price
index and a cut in consumption subsidies as a percent of the budget by
about two-thirds. The price of wheat, from which the poor derive almost
three-fifths of their caloric intake and three-fourths, also more than
doubled. In their role as mothers, data show that compared to 1987-88,
education expenditure as a percent of GNP has been constant while that of
health has actually declined.
KEYWORDS:
Women, Gender, labour, labour force, household economics, economics.
JEL: N/A.
Published:October 1996
Enthusiasm about finding the magic route to development and
economic emancipation of the deprived masses of the Third World seems to
have yielded place to cynicism, inertia and an air of resignation. No wonder,
the world has gone back to the two hundred years old Adam Smithian
philosophy of market mechanism, and unbridled capitalism ------ a
“systemless system”. The present “back-to-the-market” wave, of course, has
been expertly marketed by donor agencies and governments. But the meek
way in which the developing countries have accepted it is also the product
of frustrations resulting from assorted strategies and programmes
implemented in the last few decades. Rural development, basic needs,
population planning, import substitution, export-led growth, nationalisation,
public sector corporations, agricultural extension, heavy industry ---- the list
of half-backed policies is long. These were supposed to have been delivered
by bureaucracies which lacked imagination, energy and empathy for the
poor. But their appetite for corruption and capacity for inaction and
lethargy were enormous.
KEYWORDS:
Book Review, Developmental issues, Tasneem Ahmed Siddiqui.
JEL: N/A.
Published:October 1996
The book essentially revolves around a discussion on the implications
and meaning of the word ‘paradigm’ seeking an alternative paradigm for
development economics. It is amply apparent that development economics is
not an academic discipline and its usefulness is on its way out to all intents
and purposes. The author attempts to make a brave effort to rescue it by
highlighting its relevance and importance in the current corpus of economic
theory.
KEYWORDS:
DEVELOPMENT, PARADIGM, DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS.
JEL: N/A.