About the Book
Around the world, policymakers and civil society are debating how economic and trade policies shape public health. This edited collection adds a new dimension to this debate. It synthesizes research from a variety of disciplines to analyse how the liberalization of international trade affects reproductive health and rights. Case studies from Mexico, Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Egypt illuminate how trade-related changes in women’s employment influence their reproductive needs and capacities. The book demonstrates how global and national trade policies affect the quality, quantity, and cost of reproductive health services. Contributors also explore the implications of the World Trade Organization and the various trade agreements under its purview for reproductive health services and rights. Ultimately, this collection addresses the key policy issues for advocates of both reproductive health and rights and economic justice, and shows how trade agreements weighted against the poor in the South have very specific gendered consequences.
This book is aimed at an inter-disciplinary audience of economists, public health professionals, demographers, sociologists, anthropologists, and women’s studies specialists. It will also be of interest to policymakers and representatives of civil society organizations working on health, economic justice, and employment issues.
Published in association with the International Center for Research on Women http://www.icrw.org/html/issues/reprohealth.htm
Commendations
'This excellent collection of papers that address concrete trade and health issues in specific countries within a conceptual framework that pretty much makes sense of it all...Trading Women's Health and Rights? sets out its premises at the outset and follows through with illuminating case studies, careful analysis, and a lot of information about trade agreements and their health consequences that are unlikely to be known to population specialists. To the editors and authors of what must have seemed at the outset a most formidable task, Salud!' - Ruth Dixon-Mueller, Book reviews
Contents
Preface
Introduction: Reproductive Health, Trade Liberalization, and Development - Elissa Braunstein and Caren Grown
Part 1: Conceptual Overviews: Direct and Indirect Linkages
1. Trade Liberalization and Reproductive Health: A Framework for Understanding the Linkages - Caren Grown
2. Implication of GATS for Reproductive Health Services - Debra Lipson
3. Women‘s Work, Autonomy and Reproductive Health: The Role of Trade and Investment Liberalization - Elissa Braunstein
Part 2: Country Case Studies on Trade Liberalization, Women‘s Employment, and Reproductive Health
4. Implications of Trade Liberalization for Working Women‘s Marriage: Case Studies of Bangladesh, Egypt and Vietnam - Sajeda Amin
5. Trade Liberalization, Women‘s Migration and Reproductive Health in China - Lin Tan, Zhenzhen Zheng, and Yueping Song
6. Women‘s Reproductive Health in Export Industries at National Borders - Catalina Denman
7. Runaway Knowledge: Trade Liberalization and Reproductive Practices among Sri Lanka‘s Garment Factory Workers - Sandya Hewamanne
Part 3: Trade Liberalization and Government Capacity to Deliver Reproductive Health Supplies and Services
8. I Would Pay if I Could Pay in Maize: Trade Liberalization, User fees in Health and Women‘s Health Seeking in Tanzania - Priya Nanda
9. Tripping Up: AIDS, Pharmaceuticals and Intellectual Property in South Africa - Pranitha Maharaj and Benjamin Roberts
10. Midwifery and Nursing Migration: Implications of Trade Liberalization for Maternal Health in Low-Income Countries - Nancy Gerein and Andrew Green
Part 4: Policy and Advocacy
11. Trade Agreements and Reproductive Health and Rights: An Agenda for Analysis and Advocacy - Marceline White
12. Reproductive Health Advocacy - Alaka Basu
About the Editors
Caren Grown is co-director of the Gender Equality and the Economy program at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College and formerly Director of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Governance Team at ICRW. She has guest co-edited three special issues of World Development on macroeconomics, international trade, and gender inequality, and has written widely on gender and development issues. Grown holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the New School University.
Anju Malhotra is Group Director of Social and Economic Development at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). She leads ICRW's research in the areas of women's empowerment, adolescence, reproductive health and rights, migration, and program evaluation. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Demography from the University of Michigan.
Academic Adoption Information
This book is used for teaching at the following institutions:
University of Wales
