Abstract

In many countries, property law grants equal rights to men and women. Why, then, do women still accumulate less wealth than men?

Combining quantitative, ethnographic, and archival research, The Gender of Capital explains how and why, in every class of society, women are economically disadvantaged with respect to their husbands, fathers, and brothers. The reasons lie with the unfair economic arrangements that play out in divorce proceedings, estate planning, and other crucial situations where law and family life intersect.

Whatever the formal legal norms may be, they too often lead to gender inequality. In private decisions, families continue to allocate resources disproportionately to benefit boys and men. Meanwhile, the legal profession perpetuates assumptions that reinforce gender inequality.

About Sibylle Gollac

Sibylle Gollac is Research Fellow in sociology at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). Her work focuses on the importance of wealth in the way class- and gender-based social relations are reproduced within the family, combining ethnographic approaches and statistical analyses.

This book presentation is co-organised by Sustainable Global Economic Law (SGEL) at Amsterdam Law School and the Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies (AMCIS) at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research.