ACSPL Working Paper Series Copyright (c) 2013 Wesleyan University All rights reserved. http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/wps Recent documents in ACSPL Working Paper Series en-us Sat, 26 Jan 2013 11:33:29 PST 3600 The Role of Technological Change in Increasing Gender Equity with a Focus on Information and Communications Technology http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/wps/vol1/iss1/2 http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/wps/vol1/iss1/2 Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:11:58 PDT This paper considers the potential role of various transformative general-purpose technologies in affecting gender equity. The particular technologies considered at length and contrasted are four network technologies: electricity and water provision on the one hand, and the newer information and communications technologies of the Internet and mobile phones on the other. Available evidence on the effects of transformative technologies, both historically and in recent developing country contexts, is surveyed. The results indicate difficulties in finding cleanly measurable factors due to the complex nature of the effects of the technologies, as well as the containment of many effects in the household/nonmarket sector rather than the market sector. However, there is some optimism regarding continued expansion of electrification and the use of mobile phones in particular for improving women’s empowerment.

]]> JOYCE P. JACOBSEN Social Policies in Latin America: Causes, Characteristics, and Consequences http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/wps/vol1/iss1/1 http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/wps/vol1/iss1/1 Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:59:23 PDT This chapter classifies the main social policies enacted in Latin America from 1920 to 2010; explores the effects of those policies on the well-being of the poor; and outlines some of the forces and circumstances that led to the policies. The study's main findings are that social assistance and the public provision of many basic social services improved in Latin America after about 1990, even as the coverage of social insurance programs fell; that democracy and authoritarianism played an important and multifaceted role in shaping and constraining social policy-making in the region; and that a full explanation for why Latin American social policies evolved in the way that they did requires taking into account a wider range of factors than are usually invoked to explain the origins and evolution of welfare states in advanced industrial countries.

]]> James W. McGuire