It’s Wednesday, you know what that means… it’s time for a Women in Economics spotlight! Today, I would like to introduce a brilliant development and feminist economist, Dr. Jayati Ghosh:

Twitter: @Jayati1609
Website: https://www.networkideas.org/jayati-blog/

Dr. Jayati Ghosh is a trailblazing Indian economist and currently Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA. She previously taught Economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi for 34 years. Jayati studied at Jawaharlal Nehru University and went on to achieve a PhD in Economics at the University of Cambridge. She holds many positions, ranging from being the executive secretary of International Development Economics Associates to a Commissioner on the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s Commission on Global Economic Transformation. Jayati has authored and published around 20 books, 200 academic articles, and completed over 50 research projects. Her work focuses on emerging and developing economies, particularly India, and she has widely-cited publications in the fields of growth, globalisation, macroeconomic development, feminist economics, and international trade. As a Founding Trustee of the Economic Research Foundation, New Delhi, Jayati regularly writes for the Macroscan newspaper column in Businessline on various macroeconomic topics.

Jayati co-authored ‘The Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development’ in 2016 which covers varying approaches to economic development that stem from geographical angles, historical ideology, institutions, schools of theory, contemporary feminism and increasing incorporation of the environment.

Her work exploring issues connecting gender and development can be best seen from the book she authored: ‘Never Done and Poorly Paid: Women’s Work in Globalising India’ (2009). Here, Jayati emphasised the paradox of women’s employment in Asia where there have been visible increases in the proportion of women in paid labour, underpaid labour, unpaid labour, and open unemployment. This seemingly inexplicable situation is analysed by Jayati in the context of India’s globalisation and increasing economic integration with international networks. She delved deeper into this topic through several UN reports whilst consulting for UN Women, among many other international organisations, and she advocates for the rightful recognition of the labour contributions of women in Asia.

In her most recent book ‘Informal Women Workers in the Global South’, published January 2021, Jayati analyses the impact of policies that formalise employment in Asia and Africa, with a goal to learn from past case studies and strive towards ensuring that policies improve working conditions for women.

Her work has been recognised nationally and on a global scale. Jayati received the International Labour Organisation’s Decent Work Research Prize in 2010 (Geneva) and the Malcolm Adisheshiah Award for Contributions to Social Sciences in 2015 (Chennai).

Since the onset of Covid-19, she has brought greater focus onto digital challenges faced by developing countries, such as her work in the 2020 UN DESA publication on sustainable Covid-19 recovery. She is among 20 prominent global experts appointed to the United Nations High-Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs. The board will work with UN DESA to provide recommendations and support for global and local sustainable development, with focus on post-Covid-19 challenges. Follow her blog for more!

Jayati is a true leader and role model.

Let’s keep the conversation going and continue cheering for women’s achievements! Please watch this space for next week’s post. I always love hearing your insights and stories, so please comment below or get in touch! Thank you.