Full title: The 2024 Paul Streeten Distinguished Lecture in Global Development Policy: ‘A Woman’s Work is Never Done’ - How Gender Norms Enable Labor Coercion, Inside and Outside the Home
Gender inequities are, in part, sustained by conservative gender norms and moral codes that advantage men at the expense of women in households, the labor market and politics.
These norms – social rules that women must obey to be thought of as “good” women and citizens – make society less efficient and productive. Yet, they persist because those who benefit from them have an economic incentive and, more importantly, the economic and political power to strategically deploy them to their own advantage. Meanwhile, women subjected to these norms face a catch-22: to be seen as good workers and make progress in their careers, they are required to support and nurture co-workers alongside their own work. In the home, the free domestic labor required by gender norms inevitably reduces women’s ability to generate income that might allow them to negotiate domestic responsibilities on an equal footing.
In the face of these powerful economic incentives, addressing gender inequality in the workplace and in the home will require more than encouraging individuals to change their behavior or mandates that seek to compensate women for the labor market costs of gender norms, without challenging the norm itself. Rather, lasting equality will likely require collective action on the part of women and their allies, and public policies that acknowledge and respond to the fact that a society that enforces conservative gender norms gives men both disproportionate access to money and power—and the ability to sustain that access.
On Thursday, March 28, the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, the Boston University Institute for Economic Development and the Boston University Department of Economics hosted the annual Paul Streeten Distinguished Lecture in Global Development Policy, presented by Rohini Pande, renowned economist and the Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics and Director of the Economic Growth Center at Yale University.
The Streeten Lecture celebrates the example and legacy of Boston University Professor Paul Streeten as an eminent economist and interdisciplinary scholar whose work had a significant impact on global development policy.
