In colonial Hispanic America, widows and widowers were in an unfavorable position if their spouse died without a will, only inheriting from them if the deceased left no blood relatives to the 10th ...degree of kinship. This article examines the extent to which the intestate position of the surviving spouse improved in the new civil codes of the sixteen republics, and how their approaches were influenced by the circulation of ideas. It finds that in all except one the spouse came to be favored over the extended family. If the deceased left children, two approaches developed with respect to the inclusion of spouses: where they obtained an unconditional right to an inheritance share equal to a child, and where their inheriting depended on their relative poverty or need. These reforms took place in concert with the rise of the centrality of the conjugal unit as the focus of affection, loyalty, and responsibilities, and prior to such reforms in Europe. The countries that went furthest in elevating the position of spouses, Venezuela and Argentina, were those most deeply influenced by the ideas and changes fostered by liberalism.
Resumo Dentre os avanços contidos na Agenda 2030 para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável, está o fato de que o objetivo de alcançar a igualdade de gênero e empoderar mulheres tem nove metas específicas. ...Essas têm por foco muitas das causas básicas da desigualdade de gênero, incluindo o acesso desigual das mulheres a recursos econômicos. O foco deste artigo é, especificamente, o acesso desigual das mulheres à terra e o conjunto de indicadores propostos para medir progresso em relação a isso. Com base nos dados disponíveis para a América Latina, o artigo demonstra o nível atual de desigualdade na distribuição de gênero de produtores e proprietários agropecuários e por que é importante que países melhorem suas estatísticas sobre gênero, coletando dados desagregados sobre gênero em relação tanto à propriedade da terra quanto ao processo decisório agrícola.
ABSTRACT
Most studies that incorporate a gender dimension into the study of poverty or other development outcomes focus on the sex of the household head. This article argues that a headship analysis ...gives only a partial view of gender inequality since it does not take into account the position of women within male‐headed households. Drawing primarily on the Living Standard Measurement Studies for Latin America and the Caribbean, the authors present baseline indicators of the degree of gender inequality in asset ownership for the eleven countries in the region that have collected individual‐level data on asset ownership. Disaggregated data on asset ownership within households suggest that the distribution of property by gender is more equitable than a headship analysis alone would imply. But the degree of gender inequality also varies according to the specific asset and among countries. Further comparative work on asset ownership requires attention to the marital regimes governing property rights in marriage. Finally, the authors suggest how household surveys could be improved by standardizing the collection of individual‐level asset data across countries.
La herencia colonial hispana sobre la desigualdad de género en el matrimonio quedó resumida en el primer código civil colombiano dentro del concepto de potestad marital, en términos de los derechos ...del marido sobre la persona y bienes de la mujer. Tomó casi un siglo desmontarlo legalmente, lo cual se logró al reconocer dicho control como violencia económica y patrimonial. Desde 2008 se reconoce este tipo de violencia como una forma de violencia contra la mujer; sin embargo, los datos indican una alta incidencia de violencia económica y patrimonial por parte de la pareja o expareja, especialmente entre mujeres separadas y divorciadas, y entre las que están en uniones de hecho comparadas con las casadas. Se evidencia la prevalencia cultural de la lógica patriarcal, y también explica porque esta forma de violencia ha recibido poca atención institucional.
•Men and women respond differently to questions about housing values in Ecuador, Ghana, and Karnataka, India.•The distributions of values reported by men are wider than those reported by women.•Data ...collection on wealth must consider the sex of the respondent.
Wealth data are typically obtained by asking respondents about the value of their key assets. Yet, what if the answers to valuation questions vary systematically depending on who is interviewed? Using nationally representative data from Ghana and Ecuador and for the state of Karnataka, India, we analyze whether men and women provide different responses to questions about the monetary value of their home. Using a DFL decomposition across the full sample and comparing the responses of husbands and wives in our couple sample, we find that overall, the distribution of monetary values reported by women tends to be narrower than that reported by men. This finding has implications both for data collection efforts and for measures of the gender wealth gap.
This contribution examines the connections between gender and international migration around three themes: globalization, national economic development, and governance. First, it discusses the ...connections between globalization and the multiplicity of processes that have contributed to international migration and its feminization, arguing that gender awareness is crucial to understanding these processes. Gender analysis makes visible the increasing commodification of care work on a global scale and highlights how the organization of families is changing. Second, it analyzes the various avenues through which migration may contribute to or hinder economic development, highlighting why remittances, in particular by women, have featured very positively in the migration and development policy discourse. Third, it discusses how issues of citizenship affect the migrant population, showing how gender analysis highlights many challenges with regard to nation-based notions of citizenship, particularly in the receiving countries.
This paper addresses the disjuncture between women's formal land rights and their attaining these in practice, examining the four agrarian reforms carried out by progressive governments after 2000 in ...Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. It finds that while all four strengthened women's formal land rights, only the reforms in Bolivia and Brazil resulted in a significant share and number of female beneficiaries. In both countries, strong national‐level rural women's movements were the main advocates behind women's land rights in a context in which they formed part of the coalition that brought these regimes to power. In Bolivia, women have benefited principally through joint titling of land to couples in the country's massive land regularization programme. Brazil's reform has been the most redistributionary, and women have benefited through the priority given to female household heads as well as the mandatory joint allocation of land to couples in the agrarian reform settlements.
Abstract
Consensual unions in Latin America are becoming more common than marriages. We analyze the evolution of the laws recognizing consensual unions as well as those proscribing domestic violence, ...including patrimonial violence, for nineteen countries. While the formal property rights of married women and those in consensual unions are now similar, we show that the latter are in a more precarious position, experiencing higher incidences of intimate partner violence. In Colombia and Ecuador, the women in consensual unions also experience higher rates of economic and patrimonial violence. Drawing on qualitative research, we also explore the barriers to women in consensual unions exercising their property rights.
It is not well known that women’s use of the preposition “de” belonging to before their husbands’ last names was one of the socio-cultural changes associated with the Republican period in Colombia. ...Primary data shows that during the colonial period women kept their paternal and maternal last names after marriage. This article offers a historical overview of the norms and social practices regarding married women’s last names and an analysis of their relation to the changing identity of married women. Secondary sources illustrate how, by the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, using the particle “de” became generalized in concert with the ideological construction of the wife as “queen of the home.” The change in 1934 from the addition of “de” as a customary right to that of a legal obligation drew hardly any comment. However, it served to reinforce the legal concept of potestad marital the husband’s power over the person and property of his wife at a time when a liberal government had just strengthened married women’s property rights. In 1970, the use of the particle “de” became optional and by the end of the 20th century, this practice was disappearing. The transition in this usage is explored through interviews with a small, intentional sample of urban, middle- and upper-class women. This transition captures, in a manner paralleling socio-economic structural transformations, the historical changes in married women’s identity from one based on their domesticity and maternal role, to that of a partner in a relationship in which she no longer belongs to anyone.
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