Bringing together a collection of original essays from top scholars in the US and Asia, this book explores the centrality of gender in the process of economic development in East Asia. Contributors demonstrate the essential parts women have played in the national growth, economic restructuring, and industrialization of East Asian countries, including South Korea, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand. The studies are grounded in ethnography, personal narratives, field observation, and in-depth interviews. Despite lack of recognition, women's roles as workers, union organizers, wives, consumers, and producers have had substantial influence in the financial and industrial development of East Asia. Essay topics include: gender inequality in the Taiwan workplace; working-class families and economic restructuring in Hong Kong; labor disputes in South Korea; and migration, marriage, and mobility in China. With fresh and informative perspectives, this collection gives the full story on the "Asian Miracle" economy.
Industry Reviews
"An invaluable addition to development studies, this book analyzes East Asian industrialization, restructuring, and migration with indigenous gender perspectives. Its articles offer incisive feminist critiques of the differential effects on women and men of the Asian economic miracle." -- Judith Lorber, author of Gender Inequalities: Feminist Theories and Politics
"This collection makes gender visible as it runs through the processes of globalization, economic restructuring, and labor migration in Asia which are transforming this part of the globe. Rather than static stereotypes of Asia or of men and women, the dynamic and interacting forces of gender and economic growth stand out in these accounts." -- Myra Marx Ferree, co-author of Controversy and Coalition: The New Feminist Movement Across Four Decades of Change
"Transforming Gender and Development in East Asia is a coherent and theoretically informed collection of studies of gendering processes integral to industrialization, restructuring, and migration in East Asia. This book is a valuable contribution to our understanding." -- Joan Acker, author of Doing Comparable Worth: Gender, Class, and Pay Equity
"This important book illustrates the centrality of women's participation and development in those East Asian nations that have experienced rapid economic growth in the last thirty years...Chow's multidisciplinary approach deserves a wide audience." -- Christine E. Bose, co-editor of Women in the Latin American Development Process
"A much-needed introductory text which demonstrates the importance of gender analysis in any explanation of East Asian economic success. This will be an extremely useful book for teaching development or East Asian studies." -- Diane L. Wolf, author of Factory Daughters: Gender, Household Dynamics, and Rural Industrialization in Java
"This useful collection of papers sets out to combine empirical studies of East Asian development with a theoretical interrogation of those development theories that are neglectful of, or even blind to, the pervasiveness and pertinence of gender." -- Contemporary Sociology