Gender and the Global Political Economy: Structural Inequities and Institutional Invisibility
The global political economy is neither gender-neutral nor universally inclusive. Rather, it is a hierarchical, historically contingent system that embeds gendered relations into its structures, institutions, and logics of accumulation. Feminist scholars have long argued that mainstream economic paradigms marginalize or invisibilize women’s economic contributions, while simultaneously reinforcing exploitative divisions of labour and systemic inequalities. This essay critically examines the structural and institutional placement of gender in the global political economy by analyzing the gendered division of labour, the feminization of precarious work, unequal access to capital and resources, and the normative erasure of women’s economic roles within the framework of neoliberal globalization.
I. Gendered Division of Labour: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Manifestations
The gendered division of labour, both within households and across labour markets, forms the foundational architecture of economic production and social reproduction. It is rooted in historically entrenched patriarchal ideologies that assign productive labour to men and reproductive labour—such as caregiving, domestic work, and emotional support—to women. These divisions are neither natural nor inevitable; rather, they are socially constructed and institutionally reinforced through state policy, cultural norms, and global capitalist dynamics.
In the global economy, this division manifests as a dual economy wherein men dominate sectors classified as “productive” (e.g., manufacturing, finance, technology), while women are overrepresented in “unproductive” or informal sectors, often without security or recognition. Even in formal employment, women tend to be concentrated in low-wage, low-skill, feminized sectors such as garment manufacturing, care work, and agriculture.
This differentiation is also racialized and transnational. In the global North, the outsourcing of care and domestic labour to migrant women from the global South has led to what Arlie Hochschild terms the “global care chain”—a system of transnational reproduction where wealthier states externalize the costs of social reproduction onto poorer women across borders. Here, the global division of labour intersects not only with gender but with class, race, and citizenship.
II. Feminization of Precarious Work: Flexibility and Exploitation in Neoliberal Capitalism
One of the most striking features of the contemporary global economy is the feminization of precarious labour. In the name of labour market “flexibility,” neoliberal reforms have restructured production through informalization, subcontracting, and casualization. These changes disproportionately impact women, who now constitute the majority of the working poor, especially in export-processing zones (EPZs), informal economies, and low-skilled service sectors.
This trend is paradoxical: while globalization has ostensibly created new employment opportunities for women, the nature of these jobs often reinforces their subordination and disposability. For example:
- In EPZs across Asia, Latin America, and Africa, women are hired en masse in industries like textiles and electronics, precisely because they are perceived as docile, non-unionized, and cheap.
- In global value chains, women’s labour is frequently rendered invisible or undervalued due to subcontracting, lack of formal contracts, and unregulated working conditions.
- In the platform economy (e.g., gig work, microtasking), women experience algorithmic surveillance and unstable incomes, with limited recourse to labour protections.
This institutionalized precarity is not accidental; it reflects the deliberate externalization of social reproduction costs from capital to households and communities, disproportionately burdening women in both formal and informal spheres.
III. Gendered Access to Capital, Resources, and Markets
A key dimension of structural inequality in the global political economy is the differential access to capital, land, credit, technology, and decision-making power. Women, particularly in the global South, face systemic barriers to resource ownership and economic participation. The World Bank and UN Women consistently report that despite playing critical roles in agriculture, small-scale trade, and microenterprise, women are underrepresented in asset ownership and formal finance.
Patriarchal legal structures, discriminatory land tenure systems, and biased institutional practices limit women’s ability to accumulate wealth or influence economic policy. Even microfinance, often lauded as a gender-sensitive innovation, has been critiqued for reinforcing individual responsibility narratives without addressing structural causes of poverty, leading to debt entrapment and the informalization of risk.
Furthermore, trade liberalization and structural adjustment policies have had gender-differentiated impacts, often dismantling public services and subsistence economies on which women disproportionately rely. The shift toward market-oriented development has privileged export sectors dominated by male capital holders while marginalizing female labour in subsistence agriculture, artisanal production, and unpaid care.
IV. Normative Invisibility of Women’s Labour in Global Metrics and Institutions
A central critique of feminist political economy is the epistemic and normative erasure of women’s economic contributions from national accounts, institutional discourses, and policy frameworks. Standard macroeconomic indicators—such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), trade balances, and labour statistics—exclude unpaid care work and domestic labour, despite their foundational role in sustaining the economy.
This erasure is not merely technical but ideological. It reflects the prioritization of commodified production over social reproduction and the marginalization of alternative economic imaginaries that value reciprocity, interdependence, and care. As feminist economists argue, the invisibility of care work within global economic governance reinforces the structural undervaluation of feminized labour and obscures the true costs of neoliberal development.
Global institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank have historically operated with a gender-blind framework, privileging fiscal austerity, privatization, and deregulation. Although recent decades have witnessed rhetorical commitments to “gender mainstreaming,” critiques persist regarding the instrumentalization of gender (e.g., using women’s empowerment as a means to productivity gains) rather than a transformation of underlying power relations.
V. Theoretical Interventions and Toward a Transformative Agenda
Feminist critiques of the global political economy go beyond exposing inequality; they propose normative reimaginings of economic value, social provisioning, and power. Key interventions include:
- Reconceptualizing economy to include reproductive and emotional labour as essential economic activities.
- Advocating for care-centered economies that prioritize social reproduction and human wellbeing over accumulation and competition.
- Promoting intersectional analyses that account for the entanglement of gender with race, class, caste, and global positionality.
Moreover, feminist movements have demanded structural reforms such as:
- Gender-responsive budgeting and fiscal policy.
- Legal reforms to ensure equitable land, inheritance, and labour rights.
- Social protection frameworks that redistribute care responsibilities through state provisioning and public services.
At the international level, these demands call for a repoliticization of global economic governance, including gender parity in decision-making bodies, participatory trade negotiations, and accountability for gendered harms in macroeconomic policy.
Conclusion
The gendered architecture of the global political economy is neither residual nor peripheral; it is constitutive of how labour, value, and governance are organized under global capitalism. The feminization of precarity, exclusion from resources, and the normative invisibility of women’s labour reveal how gender operates as a structural axis of inequality embedded in neoliberal globalization.
Feminist political economy exposes these asymmetries and offers transformative insights that challenge the ontological assumptions of mainstream economics. By centering gender justice, care ethics, and social reproduction, feminist approaches advance an alternative vision of the global political economy—one grounded in equity, solidarity, and human dignity.
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