Demographic Change and the Role of Women

In the past several years considerable attention has been directed toward questions related to the role and status of women -culminating, at least in a political sense, in the United Nation's International Women's Year.Partly as a result, it is now widely recognised that social, political and economic changes have differential effects on men and women and that a conscious effort should be made to improve the relative position of women in the economy and in the society.But what do we really know about what women are doing, how this has been changing over time, the factors which are responsible for these changes and what important feedbacks are associated with changing women's roles?The research programme described in this paper, which is funded by UNFPA (GLO/yZ/Plt), is designed to help policy-makers in developing countries with information on the economic contributions women are actually making as well as providing insights into the causes and effects of changes in women's roles, especially as they relate to demographic change.To accomplish these objectives, an interdisciplinary approach will be used, and inter-relationships between women's roles and demographic phenomenon, such as fertility, mortality and family structure, will be stressed, since family obligations, child-care and household continue to be largely the responsibility of women around the world, and thus greatly affect and in turn are affected by women's economic activities.The present research programme is quite ambitious -in terms of the range of issues it plans to study, the broad frame within which it plans to study these issues, its.global coverage and the interdisciplinary approach it plans to use, nonetheless it is strongly felt that questions related to women's roles and demographic change should be studied from such a broad perspective.However, in the light of the difficulties inherent in such an ambitious research programme, the present paper should be seen more as an important first step in the process of identifying the key issues and methodologies required to study these issues than as a final statement regarding the aims and objectives of this research programme.For this reason, numerous hypotheses and methodological notes are scattered throughout the text, partly in order to stimulate and encourage comments and suggestions.Many people inside and outside the ILO have made important contributions to the ideas contained in this paper.Although there are too many people to name them individually without missing some of them, two people deserve special mention -Gerry Rodgers and Guy Standing, whose comments and ideas are embedded throughout the text.However, any mistakes which remain are the responsibility of the author

Demographic economics · Developing country · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Political science · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare

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