The Gendered Nature of Sovereign Debt Accumulation

The gendered dimensions of sovereign debt crises and the strongly gendered implications of attempts at debt crisis resolution are now well-known. However, there has been less attention paid to the ways in which debt accumulation is also gendered, and fewer analyses of the implications of a debt-driven development path for women, girls, and other discriminated groups. Such an exercise reveals that the gains from the process of sovereign debt accumulation are highly gendered, with women often losing out even during this phase, and then facing more adversities over the rest of the debt cycle once repayment problems set in. This interrogates the reliance on external debt for development, which remains the basis of much national policy making for development and international advice to low- and middle-income countries.