CLASS 2: Feminist Macroeconomics: Engendering Macroeconomic Theory & Policy (İpek İlkkaracan)

This class is part of the Summer Crash Course 2021 on "Ecological & Feminist Macroeconomics" organised by Federico Demaria at the University of Barcelona.

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ABSTRACT
This lecture will provide the students with an introduction to a gender-aware approach to (macro)economics. We will discuss the feminist critiques of both mainstream and non-mainstream macroeconomics, the overlaps and emerging synergies between feminist and non-mainstream economics, such as post-Keynesian, institutional and ecological economics. The focus on unpaid work, domestic/caring labour, the care economy, time-use, gendered patterns in allocation of time, and their two-directional mutual interactions with the market economy are defining aspects of feminist economics. We will explore these basic concepts, the implications of their exclusion from conventional economic thinking as well as their contributions to economic analysis and policy. The lecture will end with recent advances in gendered macroeconomic analysis and overlaps with ecological economics, such as the proposal for a Purple Economy as complementary to a green economy, and applied macro-micro policy simulations on investing in the care economy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
İpek İlkkaracan is Professor of Economics at Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Faculty of Management, a Research Associate with the Levy Economics Institute in New York and the Economic Research Forum (ERF) in Cairo, an Associate Editor of the Feminist Economics journal and President-elect of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) for 2022. In 2018-2020, she was based at the University of Rome-Sapienza in Italy on a Visiting Professor grant. Ilkkaracan’s areas of research entail the care economy, gender and macroeconomics, political economy of gender, labor markets and development. Her ‘Purple Economy’ model, which depicts a gender-egalitarian and sustainable economic system, was adopted by various women’s organizations as an advocacy tool such as the European Women’s Lobby (a Europe-wide network of women’s organizations) and the International Women’s Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) Asia-Pacific. Ilkkaracan has served as Board Member of IAFFE and the Middle Eastern Economics Association (MEEA); she is also a founding member of Women for Women’s Human Rights – New Ways, Women’s Labor and Employment Platform, ITU Women’s Studies Center and Gender and Macroeconomics GEM-Europe Network.