Bringing together a collection of essays from 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,...

Transforming Gender and Development in East Asia brings together a collection of original essays from top scholars in the United States and Asia to explore the centrality of gender in the process of economic development in East Asia. Contributors demonstrate through ethnography, personal narratives, field observation, and in-depth interviews 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 China.

The authors highlight how structural circumstances in countries with various degrees of industrialization are associated with specific policies. The analyses of women's experiences reveal the variety of ways in which private patriarchy in families combines with public patriarchy in economies and states to create a system of domination which subordinates women. The authors detail how gender is constructed under specific political, economic, and cultural circumstances, and seek to understand how state policies with differing sensitivities to women's issues have produced mixed outcomes for women...