Introduction

What are the economic contributions of Third World women, and what are the two-way linkages between changes in women’s productive roles and changes in fertility, mortality and migratory behaviour? The interdisciplinary collection of chapters contained in this volume offer new, interdisciplinary perspectives to understanding the dynamics of population change and women’s roles. They include realistic and comprehensive attempts to assess women’s economic productivity, critical appraisals of the ability of existing theoretical models to capture the reality of women’s behaviour in the Third World, and an awareness that several models and methods are essential to tackle the complex issues involved in the interpretation of the interrelationship between women’s roles and demographic change.