Female Well-Being

Toward a Global Theory of Social Change

Edited by Janet Mancini Billson and Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban

‘This comparative study of the world’s women from the 20th century will help us to build stronger movements worldwide in the 21st century’ - Dr. Amna El. Badri, Ahfad University for Women, Omdurman, Sudan.

This global surveys starts from the assumption that the significant transformations in women’s lives deserve to be fully documented and interpreted. Janet Mancini Billson and Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban tackle the complexities of social change by using data from countries in every world region to illustrate the most critical challenges that women faced during the last century -challenges that are also likely to shape the 21st century.

Global knowledge and feminism dovetailed in the 20th century, fed by international air travel, telecommunications, the Internet, and a growing awareness that solving female oppression would improve the lot of all humankind. The authors therefore adopt a strong international, comparative, cross-cultural, and feminist framework that uncovers the fundamental processes that promote, sustain, or degrade the female condition.

At the heart of Female Well-Being are case studies written by country teams of scholars, educators, and policy analysts in Canada, the United States, Colombia, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Croatia, Japan, Bangladesh, Thailand, South Africa, and Sudan. Female well-being is measured by analysing trends in infant mortality, maternal mortality, literacy, life expectancy, education, work, income, family structure, and political power. These trends are contextualised in light of the century’s major events, legislative initiatives, social policies, and leadership, to
illustrate the processes that enhance, sustain, or detract from the female condition.

This book will be a critical resource for academics, development experts, and policy analysts.