Women in development : issues for economic and sector analysis

This paper highlights issues and action plans concerning women in economic and sector analysis and in project design. The paper focuses on the majority of women who are poor. It emphasizes measures to include women in development that contribute to economic performance, poverty reduction, slower population growth, and other broad development objectives. The paper concludes that women already contribute far more economically than is usually recognized. By expanding women's economic choices, output and efficiency can be increased by enabling women to find their true comparative advantage. Women also tend to be disproportionately represented among the poor, so economic adjustment programs should deliberately take into consideration women's special needs and constraints. The same set of prices on agricultural products may also have a different incentive effect on men and women. With labor markets often segmented by gender, women are typically concentrated in fewer more traditional, less remunerative lines of work. Finally, improving education of women is probably the easiest program to target, but key health and family planning needs include stronger prenatal screening and care, help with delivery and a reduction of anemia.