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Bina Agarwal

Overview

Bina Agarwal is an Indian development economist known internationally for her work on gender, land rights, agriculture, environmental governance, and poverty. She is widely associated with feminist economics in South Asia and has contributed to scholarly and policy debates on women's property rights, particularly access to and ownership of land.

Key facts

Name Bina Agarwal
Nationality Indian
Field Development economics, feminist economics
Known for Research on gender and land rights, agriculture, and environmental governance

Background and academic work

Agarwal's research has examined the intersection of gender with economic structures in rural South Asia. Her writings address questions of how women's access to productive resources—especially land—affects household welfare, bargaining power, and broader development outcomes. She has also written on community forestry and the participation of women in environmental decision-making.

Themes in her scholarship

  • Gender and land rights: The legal, social, and economic dimensions of women's ownership of land in South Asia.
  • Agriculture and rural livelihoods: The role of women in farming systems and the implications of agrarian change.
  • Environmental governance: Participation, equity, and outcomes in community-managed forests and natural resources.
  • Intra-household bargaining: Feminist critiques and extensions of mainstream household economic models.

Significance

Agarwal's contributions have helped place gender at the centre of debates on land, agriculture, and the environment in development economics. Her arguments have influenced both academic research and policy discussions on women's property rights and inheritance reform in India and other parts of South Asia.

References