ABSTRACT

Asia is the most populous continent on earth, home to 57.6% of the world’s 6.9 billion people. Some of the fastest growing economies in the world are in Asia, as are some of the most impoverished ones. The context of our analysis includes the twists and turns associated with globalization, which implies in the most general sense macro-level social transformation that affects the entire world or large sections of it. The impact of these global social processes on gender relations in selected Asian countries is the main focus of the analysis. Social and economic transformation in Asia often has a dramatic quality about it, which makes tracking changes in gender relations both interesting and challenging at the same time.