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This working paper examines gender gaps in empowerment and the timing of their emergence through adolescence and young adulthood for two cohorts of children living in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. It uses longitudinal data from Young Lives on two psychosocial competencies – self-efficacy and agency – associated with the notion of empowerment. In all four countries, gaps in self-efficacy emerge in late adolescence, widening particularly between the ages of 15 and 19 and favouring boys. The results are more heterogeneous for agency; gaps widen between the ages of 12 and 15 and favour boys in Ethiopia and India, and girls in Peru and Vietnam. However, for the latter, the gaps close or even reverse in favour of boys by age 22. Our analysis pays special attention to the sub-national context: whether young people grow up in urban or rural areas. We find important gaps for rural girls, who show the lowest levels of agency and self-efficacy across the four countries. Finally, we explore the relationship between background characteristics and these two measures in mid-adolescence and young adulthood (ages 15 and 22). We find that these outcome measures correlate positively with the socio-economic level of the household in which they were born and grew up.

In this chapter, we use ‘care labour’ as a lens to theorise relations between women and children, and to identify potential intersections and antagonisms between feminism and the politics of childhood. While care is widely recognised as a universal feature of human experience, and closely related to the concept of vulnerability, it remains a highly politicised topic in both research and policy. This chapter asks: is it possible to create a conceptual frame of care relations that takes both women and children into account, one that does not de facto hold one group’s needs, views or rights above the other’s? Our response is a call for greater attention to the temporal aspects of care and of vulnerability - in particular, to dimensions of the life course and to generational relations .

In this chapter, we use ‘care labour’ as a lens to theorise relations between women and children, and to identify potential intersections and antagonisms between feminism and the politics of childhood. While care is widely recognised as a universal feature of human experience, and closely related to the concept of vulnerability, it remains a highly politicised topic in both research and policy. This chapter asks: is it possible to create a conceptual frame of care relations that takes both women and children into account, one that does not de facto hold one group’s needs, views or rights above the other’s? Our response is a call for greater attention to the temporal aspects of care and of vulnerability - in particular, to dimensions of the life course and to generational relations .

This thesis investigates the emergence of an indigenous middle class between 1975 and 2010 in Bolivia – a country characterized by poor and unstable long-term economic growth, high inequality, and enduring ethnic and class cleavages. The study takes a two-tiered approach. It focuses first on tracing the emergence of the middle class by highlighting the main drivers of socio-economic improvement for individuals. Based on a longitudinal examination of a Socio-Economic Index (SEI) – upon which the middle class is operationally defined in this thesis – I explain the emergence of the middle class as the result of two distinct but interconnected processes: (i) a massive urbanization process that reached a peak in the mid-1980s, which brought individuals closer to areas favoured by state policies; and (ii) an institutional change in the mid-1990s, consisting of a new national framework that allocated resources more efficiently throughout the country. In addition, my analysis uncovers the different occupational trajectories that middle-class individuals followed to gain access to the new structure of opportunities and to prosper and become part of the middle class. Based on inter- and intra-generational analyses of occupational mobility, I find that in a context of an over supply of labour and with limited skills and economic capital, migrants found the means to thrive socially and economically in commerce, transport, and construction activities. Secondly, I explore the extent to which the emergence of the new middle class has opened-up opportunities for indigenous peoples. I conduct a periodic headcount of indigeneity based on spoken languages (indigenous and/or Spanish) and self-ascription to indigenous groups. Two messages emerge from this exercise. First, the new middle class has provided opportunities for individuals who are monolingual in indigenous languages, whether they ascribe themselves or not to an indigenous group. Second, individuals' ethnic identities become fuzzier as they move into the middle class. This is revealed by indigenous language loss and a significant decrease in self-ascription that happened in a markedly stratified manner over just ten years. I tackle the intricacies of middle-class ethnic identity by drawing on a social identity conceptual framework that allows me to integrate synergistically the discussions on class, ethnicity, and modernization. By approaching social identities through the analysis of differentiated lifestyles, I find that new middle-class individuals have hybrid and segmented identities. That is, individuals combine indigenous/traditional and modern forms of living that vary according to their socio-economic level, but do not necessarily move towards cultural assimilation. I contend that the creation of new status symbols and forms of recognition based on indigenous idiosyncrasies in the new middle class constitutes a categorical break with historical, ethnic-based forms of social, economic, and cultural exclusion and discrimination. In summary, this thesis advances the conceptualization and understanding of the middle class, contributing to the burgeoning literature on emerging middle classes in developing countries by offering a more complex picture of its expansion and identity construction.

Economic inequality is out of control. In 2019, the world’s billionaires, only 2,153 people, had more wealth than 4.6 billion people., This great divide is based on a flawed and sexist economic system that values the wealth of the privileged few, mostly men, more than the billions of hours of the most essential work – the unpaid and underpaid care work done primarily by women and girls around the world. Tending to others, cooking, cleaning and fetching water and firewood are essential daily tasks for the wellbeing of societies, communities and the functioning of the economy. The heavy and unequal responsibility of care work perpetuates gender and economic inequalities., This has to change. Governments around the world must act now to build a human economy that is feminist and values what truly matters to society, rather than fuelling an endless pursuit of profit and wealth. Investing in national care systems to address the disproportionate responsibility for care work done by women and girls and introducing progressive taxation, including taxing wealth and legislating in favour of carers, are possible and crucial first steps., Time to Care online report summary, Learn more about the WE-Care programme, Les inégalités économiques échappent à tout contrôle. En 2019, les milliardaires du monde entier, c’est à dire seulement 2 153 personnes, se partageaient plus de richesses que 4,6 milliards de personnes. Ce clivage profond s’appuie sur un système économique sexiste et injuste qui valorise davantage la richesse d’une minorité privilégiée, constituée d’hommes principalement, plutôt que les milliards d’heures de travail de soin – non rémunéré ou peu rémunéré - des femmes et des filles dans le monde. Prendre soin des autres, cuisiner, nettoyer, aller chercher de l’eau et du bois de chauffage sont des tâches essentielles au bien-être des sociétés et des communautés ainsi qu’au bon fonctionnement d’une économie. La responsabilité lourde et inégale du travail de soin perpétue les inégalités économiques et de genre., Il est temps que cela change. Les gouvernements du monde entier doivent agir maintenant afin de construire une économie centrée sur l’humain qui défend des valeurs féministes et valorise ce qui est réellement important pour la société, plutôt que d’alimenter une course sans fin au profit et à la richesse. Des solutions existent et il y a urgence à les mettre en place : investir dans des systèmes de soin afin de répartir plus équitablement le travail de soin effectué aujourd’hui par les femmes et les filles et mettre en place une fiscalité plus juste et progress.