Women in Want: Gendered Histories of Poverty and Survival MTA
How gender roles, labor market exclusions, and family law have determined women's poverty across time

About this book:

*Women in Want: Gendered Histories of Poverty and Survival* provides a comprehensive historical and structural analysis of the factors that have disproportionately relegated women to economic precarity. The book argues that women’s poverty is not an inevitable outcome of market forces but a deliberate product of gendered legal, social, and economic rules. By tracing the evolution of property and inheritance regimes, family laws like coverture, and the systematic devaluation of care work, the authors illustrate how women have been historically excluded from asset ownership and funneled into precarious, low-wage labor sectors.

A central theme of the text is the "price of care," examining how the household economy relies on unpaid female labor that remains invisible in national accounts and macroeconomic planning. This invisibility extends into the workforce through occupational segregation and the "feminization" of informal work, such as home-based piecework, domestic service, and the modern gig economy. The authors further complicate this narrative by utilizing an intersectional lens, showing how race, class, caste, and colonial legacies intensify economic exclusions for marginalized women, creating "layered precarity" that persists across generations.

The latter half of the book focuses on modern institutional barriers and the potential for reform. It analyzes the impact of reproductive rights on economic security, the persistent gender pay gap despite educational gains, and the failures of the welfare state to support single mothers. The text critiques "policy paradigms" that have historically viewed aid through a moralizing lens, advocating instead for a shift toward social protection that treats childcare as essential infrastructure and secures women’s standing through robust labor standards and individual financial inclusion.

The book concludes with a "Reform Roadmap" for building gender-just economies. This agenda prioritizes the recognition and redistribution of care work, the formalization of labor rights for domestic and informal workers, and the implementation of gender-responsive tax and budgeting policies. Ultimately, the book asserts that dismantling women's poverty requires building collective power through unions and cooperatives, ensuring that legal promises of equality are translated into enforceable, everyday rights that move women from mere survival to durable economic security.

What You'll Find Inside:

• How historical property and inheritance laws concentrated assets in male hands, creating intergenerational wealth gaps that persist today
• The central role of unpaid care work in sustaining economies while trapping women in cycles of poverty and dependence
• How labor market segregation funnels women into low-wage, precarious sectors with minimal protections
• The intersection of race, class, colonialism, and migration with gender to create layered economic exclusions
• Policy solutions centered on childcare as infrastructure, expanded labor protections, and legal reforms for economic autonomy

Who's It For:

This book is essential for policymakers designing gender-equitable economic policies, researchers studying gendered poverty and inequality, activists advocating for women's economic rights, and development practitioners working on inclusive social protection systems. It provides both historical analysis and actionable reform roadmaps for anyone seeking to understand and dismantle the structural roots of women's poverty.