What is globalization? How is it gendered? How does it work in Asia and the Pacific? The authors of the sixteen original and innovative essays presented here take fresh stock of globalization’s complexities. They pursue critical feminist inquiry about women, gender, and sexualities and produce original insights into changing life patterns in Asian and Pacific Island societies. Each essay puts the lives and struggles of women at the center of its examination while weaving examples of global circuits in Asian and Pacific societies into a world frame of analysis. The work is generated from within Asian and Pacific spaces, bringing to the fore local voices and claims to knowledge. The geographic emphasis on Asia/Pacific highlights the complexity of globalizing practices among specific people whose dilemmas come alive on these pages. Although the book focuses on global, gendered flows, it expands its investigation to include the media and the arts, intellectual resources, activist agendas, and individual life stories. First-rate ethnographies and interviews reach beyond generalizations and bring Pacific and Asian women and men alive in their struggles against globalization. Globalization cannot be summed up in a neat political agenda but must be actively contested and creatively negotiated. Taking feminist political thinking beyond simple oppositions, the authors ask specific questions about how global practices work, how they come to be, who benefits, and what is at stake. Contributors: Nancie Caraway, Steve Derné, Cynthia Enloe, Kathy Ferguson, Maria Ibarra, Gwyn Kirk, Sally Merry, Virginia Metaxas, Min Dongchao, Monique Mironesco, Rhacel Parrenas, Lucinda Peach, Vivian Price, Jyoti Puri, Judith Raiskin, Nancy Riley, Saskia Sassen, Teresia Teaiwa, Chris Yano, Yau Ching.

This book demonstrates the integral nature of gendered issues and feminist frameworks for a comprehensive understanding of contemporary IR bringing together the work of feminist scholars, teachers and activists into a coherent and accessible collection.

This paper examines gender inequality in the context of structural transformation and rebalancing in China. We document declining women's relative wages and labor force participation in China during the last two decades, despite rapid growth and expansion of the service sector. Using household data, we provide evidence consistent with a U-shaped relationship between economic development and women's labor market outcomes. Using a model of structural transformation, we show that labor market barriers for women have increased over time. Model counterfactuals suggest that removing these barriers and increasing service sector productivity can boost both gender equality and economic growth in China.

Toward Gender Equality in East Asia and the Pacific examines the relationship between gender equality and development and outlines an agenda for public action to promote more effective and inclusive development in East Asian and Pacific countries.

Asia’s rapid economic growth has led to a significant reduction in extreme poverty, but accompanied by rising inequality. This book deals with three questions: What have been the trends of inequality in Asia and the Pacific? What are the key drivers of rising inequality in the region? How should Asian countries respond to the rising inequality? Technological change, globalization, and market-oriented reform have been the key drivers of Asia’s remarkable growth and poverty reduction, but they have also had significant distribution consequences. These three drivers of growth cannot be hindered because they are the sources of productivity improvement and betterment of quality of life. This book will be useful to those interested in policy options that could be deployed by Asian countries in confronting rising inequality.

Asia’s rapid economic growth has led to a significant reduction in extreme poverty, but accompanied by rising inequality. This book deals with three questions: What have been the trends of inequality in Asia and the Pacific? What are the key drivers of rising inequality in the region? How should Asian countries respond to the rising inequality? Technological change, globalization, and market-oriented reform have been the key drivers of Asia’s remarkable growth and poverty reduction, but they have also had significant distribution consequences. These three drivers of growth cannot be hindered because they are the sources of productivity improvement and betterment of quality of life. This book will be useful to those interested in policy options that could be deployed by Asian countries in confronting rising inequality.

Working women everywhere face discrimination. Inequality and lack of inclusion is reinforced through regulation, policy, behaviors and attitudes. Although there has been progress in some countries, gender equality at work has yet to be achieved by any nation.This in-depth study examines the challenges faced by working women, their families and communities in ten countries throughout Asia and the Pacific: New Zealand, Australia, Japan, China, Cambodia, India, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Pakistan and the Philippines. Informed by the work of senior academics, policy-makers and community grouprepresentatives, and with a foreword by Elizabeth Broderick, independent expert for the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls, United Nations Human Rights Council, working women' s experiences are described and analyzed within a framework of four themes: demography, globalization, technological development and sustainability.Drawing on this wide range of qualitative and quantitative evidence, the authors set out recommendations for coordinated and context-sensitive responses specific to each country to improve the working lives of women and girls.