Shifting Burdens

Book excerpt: * Details the effects of structural adjustment policies imposed on agriculture, and their effect on gender relations within rural areas in the developing world * Empirically grounded case studies from India, Mexico, South Africa, Uganda, and Vietnam Over the past ten years neoliberal policy shifts in rural development across the globe have reduced the role of government, consigning the costs of services to the rural poor themselves. But what are the gender effects of this change? The contributors unravel the ways in which economic and social structures, institutions, and policy outcomes are mediated by gender as a social relationship, and consider the degree to which a "diversified livelihoods strategy," touted as the means by which rural families are struggling to improve their standard of living, accurately describes what is taking place on the ground.