A Marxian Perspective

An alternative approach to the analysis of the role of women in the economy, which is often ignored by many of the mainstream economists whose work is referred to in other chapters, is the Marxian paradigm. Marx and Engels considered the question of the role of women in the economy, and over the years, particularly in the last few decades, other writers have added to or suggested alterations to those strands of Marxian analysis concerned with this question. This compares with those economists who belonged to the neoclassical school of economic thought where, as Pujol (1984) explains, the position of women in the economy was not properly considered; only in the post-war period has neoclassical economic analysis been applied in depth to this topic. One cannot really understand a Marxian analysis of the role of women in the economy without first knowing something about the main ideas of Marxian theory. However, it is not possible to explain properly, in a page or so, a set of ideas that encompasses such a wide range of economic, political and social concepts, and the reader unfamiliar with this subject may wish to refer to an introductory text on Marxian economics, e.g. Hunt and Sherman (1981), to gain a better understanding of the ideas involved.