Life-course and Cohort Impacts in Women’s Pathways to Politics: Post-active Motherhood as a Time of Political Possibility in India

Tanya Jakimow and Pragati

Journal of Development Studies, 2021, vol. 57, issue 11, 1795-1806

Abstract: Women’s gendered responsibilities of caring for children and the home is persistently identified as a barrier to gender-equal representation in political office. Rather than solely seeking to help women overcome what are often insurmountable barriers, we argue that we also need to align our strategies with women’s culturally specific life-courses, and the socio-historical conditions of particular cohorts. Drawing upon the experiences of women political actors in Dehradun, North India, we identify post-active motherhood – the stage of life after children are independent but prior to old-age – as an under-recognised moment of political possibility. While women in middle-age have the motivation, time and experience to contest elections (supply-side dynamics), the political environment remains hostile to their political advancement (demand-side dynamics). Further, the socio-historical conditions of the next cohort of women political actors, now approaching post-active motherhood are indicative of limited opportunities for political apprenticeship compared to their seniors. We argue for a far-sighted approach to research and practice aimed at increasing women’s political leadership that analyses and works with culturally and historically specific life-courses for each incoming generation of women political actors.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2021.1919633 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:57:y:2021:i:11:p:1795-1806

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FJDS20

DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2021.1919633

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Development Studies is currently edited by Howard White, Oliver Morrissey and Ken Shadlen

More articles in Journal of Development Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().