Suspended in 2025/26
GI418      Half Unit
Feminist Economics and Policy

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Additional requisites:

The course is run by the Department of Gender Studies – an interdisciplinary department. One of the key objectives of the course is to bring a multi-perspectival approach to the understanding of economic processes and the role of policy in attaining economic equality and well-being. As economic processes have a profound influence on many dimensions of social life, gender relations and gender (in)equality, and vice versa, this course seeks to expose students interested in gender and economic issues to the work of Feminist Economists.

An interest in gender is essential and undergraduate level course in economics would be an advantage.

Recent decades have seen the emergence of gender equality as a key policy concern and Feminist Economics as a sub discipline. The purpose of the course is to engage with the theoretical foundations and intellectual contributions of Feminist Economics and  to develop an analytical understandings of gender issues with respect to economic processes and policies operating at macro and micro levels. At the macro level, the course explores the implications of contemporary economic and financial governance from a gender perspective, the gender bias in macroeconomic analyses, and the gendered impact of crises, such as austerity policies and the Covid-19 pandemic. At the micro level, the course analyses the gender dynamics of household and labour market inequalities, engages with the economic foundations and explanations of gender inequality within employment and within the household, focusing on wage and productivity differences and the gender division between ‘productive’ and ‘reproductive’ work. Gender as economically significant marker of inequality is contextualised, where possible, in relation to race, social class, sexuality and migrant status. Attention is also paid to the way in which individual well-being is influenced by the level of development and transnational trade relations. Accordingly, the course seeks to bridge the macro-micro divide by drawing together the gendered critique of existing biases in economic thinking and to provide an analytical foundation for alternative approaches to policies that aim to contribute towards securing sustainable development and gender equal well-being.

10 hours of seminars and 15 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Essay (1500 words) in the WT.

• Bargawi, H.,  Cozzi, G and Himmelweit, R. (2017) Economics and Austerity in Europe: Gendered Impacts and Sustainable Alternatives.
• Berik,G., Kongar, E. (2021) The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Economics. 
• Cantillon, S., Mackett, O. and Stevano, S., (2023) Feminist Political Economy. A Global Perspective
• Ferber, M. and Nelson, J.(1993) Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory adn Economics. 
• Ferber, M. and Nelson, J. (2003) Feminist Economics Today: Beyond Economic Man.
• Folbre, N. (2009) Greed, Lust and Gender: A History of Economic Ideas.
• Gutiérrez, M. (2003) Macro-Economics: Making Gender Matter.
• Jacobsen, J. (2020) Advanced Introduction to Feminist Economics.
• Karamessini,M and Rubery, J. (2014) Women and Austerity: The Economic Crisis and the Future for Gender Equality.
• Peterson, J. and Lewis, M. (1999) The Elgar Companion to Feminist Economics. 
• Perrons, D. (2021) Is Austerity Gendered? 
• Pujol, M. (1992) Feminism and Anti-Feminism in Early Economic Thought.
• Zein-Elabdin, E.O. and Charushela, S. (2004) Postcolonialism Meets Economics. 

Essay (100%, 3000 words)