ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author offers a ways in which global political economy (GPE) is pervasively gendered and how this gendering produces and differentially 'distributes' insecurities. Gendered effects include increases in un- and under-employment, especially of men, coupled with erosion of unionized wages, which depletes household pooling resources and typically places additional pressure on women to ensure adequate family/household provisioning. The author emphasizes how the differential valorization – conceptually and materially – of qualities associated with masculinity and femininity affects the unequal distribution of authority, privilege, resources, and insecurities. She reviews key features of neoliberal globalization and reflecting on definitions of in/security. The author aims to introduce her analytical framing of GPE and uses that framing to survey how neoliberal globalization produces a wide array of insecurities. She focuses on two aspects of the reproductive economy that reveal the centrality to gendering political economy and insecurity: the devalorization of 'women's work' and the dramatic expansion of informal economic activities worldwide.
