CGD Podcast: Women and Work in South Asia with Seema Jayachandran

Women's labor force participation in South Asia remains among the lowest in the world, even as girls' education has improved. What's behind this ongoing gap, and what are the implications for how we think about gender and development?

On this episode of the CGD Podcast, I'm joined by Seema Jayachandran, professor of economics at Princeton University and CGD non-resident fellow, to discuss the surprising findings of her research on the topic.

Together we explore how gender inequality can manifest differently in different regions, why GDP and labor access don't necessarily align, and what the research shows about how to increase women's access to jobs.

Related research:

• Paper: Why Are Indian Children So Short? The Role of Birth Order and Son Preference
• Paper: Friendship at Work: Can Peer Effects Catalyze Female Entrepreneurship?