ABSTRACT
The UNESCO Decade for Women strengthened the growing awareness about the importance of women and family as foci of key economic, cultural, and political processes and promoted the publication of a considerable amount of official statistical data and academic titles. National and intra-Latin American women's conferences, as well as the foundation of centers for the study of women, have encouraged the process of analysis and reflection. The literature on women is not merely informative or descriptive; in the hands of well-trained and capable analysts, it is comprehensive, serious, and sophisticated. If the growth and vitality of an academic subject are measured by the rate of publications devoted to it, the study of women and the family in Latin America is doing well. Women in the economic sphere and the political economy of the family are key subjects of research, often linked with the larger issue of development.
