Edward Zigler Center Child Development & Social Policy / Spring 2013 Lecture Series: "The Gender Asset Gap"

Cheryl Doss, PhD, Senior Lecturer Global Affairs and Economics, Yale Univerfsity

Empowering women is often seen as  pathway to improving outcomes for children. Increasing women’s ownership of and control over land and other assets is one means to empower women.  The Gender Asset Gap Project has collected individual level data on the ownership of and control over physical and financial assets in Ghana, Ecuador, and Karnataka, India, and calculated the gender asset and wealth gaps.  The gaps are large in both Ghana and India, but much less so in Ecuador.  To understand the gaps, it is necessary to understand the laws and social norms about marital property and inheritance across the different countries.  

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The Edward Zigler Center on Child Development and Social Policy is a platform for speakers from academia, levels of government, community organizations, service agencies, the business world and the media to discuss their work and its policy implications.