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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Intersection of Race, Class and Gender and the Biases of ESAP
Author:Gordon, Jessica
Year:1998
Periodical:SAFERE: Southern African Feminist Review (ISSN 1024-9451)
Volume:3
Issue:1
Pages:55-66
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic terms:Zimbabwe
Southern Africa
Subjects:economic policy
women
Economics, Commerce
Structural adjustment programmes
Cultural environment
discrimination
Sex Roles
Economic discrimination
Economic Structural Adjustment Program (Zimbabwe)
Development and Technology
economics
Status of Women
Politics and Government
Abbreviation:ESAP=Economic Structural Adjustment Programme
Abstract:What has often been ignored in IMF and World Bank policies for the developing world is that the structure of developing economies is inherently different from that of the industrial nations. The Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) for Zimbabwe ignored, for example, the role of the informal sector in the economy and the predominance of women in agriculture. The Social Dimensions of Adjustment Programme, designed in 1993, was intended to assist the 'temporarily disadvantaged' by ESAP, but it ignored the fact that ESAP exacerbates the condition of the chronically poor, a disproportionate number of whom are women. The traditional sexual division of labour in Shona society is such that ESAP measures have a negative impact on women: continued high rates of inflation and devaluation act to erode household income and the persistence of high interest rates has an adverse effect on women's income-generating potential. ESAP's aim of reducing the budget deficit has the most obvious negative effects on women's lives as education and health budgets are cut drastically. For an economic policy to work, many things must be taken into consideration in its design, especially the existing social and political systems, and the ways in which to minimize its negative ramifications for the most vulnerable groups. Bibliogr., notes, ref.
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