How do economic and trade policies shape public health? This book adds a new dimension to this global debate, by synthesizing research from various disciplines on how international trade liberalization affects reproductive health and rights. It reviews the direct and indirect linkages between the two, and then focuses in on how the linkages are mediated through women's employment, using case studies from Bangladesh, Egypt, Vietnam, China, Mexico and Sri Lanka. It takes up the issue of how trade liberalization affects government capacity to deliver reproductive health services, as illustrated by Tanzania, South Africa, and the international migration of nurses and midwives. It addresses the policy and advocacy issues for advocates of both reproductive health and rights and economic justice, and shows how trade agreements weighted against the poor in the South have very specific gendered consequences.

Table of Contents

Preface INTRODUCTION Reproductive Health, Trade Liberalization, and Development - Elissa Braunstein and Caren Grown SECTION 1: CONCEPTUAL OVERVIEWS: DIRECT AND INDIRECT LINKAGES 1. Trade Liberalization and Reproductive Health: A Framework for Understanding the Linkages - Caren Grown 2. Implication of GATS for Reproductive Health Services - Debra Lipson 3. Women's Work, Autonomy and Reproductive Health: The Role of Trade and Investment Liberalization - Elissa Braunstein SECTION I: COUNTRY CASE STUDIES ON TRADE LIBERALIZATION, WOMEN'S EMPLOYMENT, AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH 4. Implications of Trade Liberalization for Working Women's Marriage: Case Studies of Bangladesh, Egypt and Vietnam - Sajeda Amin 5. Trade Liberalization, Women's Migration and Reproductive Health in China - Lin Tan, Zhenzhen Zheng, and Yueping Song 6. Women's Reproductive Health in Export Industries at National Borders - Catalina Denman 7. Runaway Knowledge: Trade Liberalization and Reproductive Practices among Sri Lanka's Garment Factory Workers - Sandya Hewamanne SECTION III: TRADE LIBERALIZATION AND GOVERNMENT CAPACITY TO DELIVER REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH SUPPLIES AND SERVICES 8. I Would Pay if I Could Pay in Maize: Trade Liberalization, User fees in Health and Women's Health Seeking in Tanzania - Priya Nanda 9. Tripping Up: AIDS, Pharmaceuticals and Intellectual Property in South Africa - Pranitha Maharaj and Benjamin Roberts 10. Midwifery and Nursing Migration: Implications of Trade Liberalization for Maternal Health in Low-Income Countries - Nancy Gerein and Andrew Green SECTION IV: POLICY AND ADVOCACY 11. Trade Agreements and Reproductive Health and Rights: An Agenda for Analysis and Advocacy - Marceline White 12. Reproductive Health Advocacy - Alaka Basu Index Contributors

About the Author

Caren Grown is director of the gender equality and economy program at the Levy Economics Institute in the US. She works closely with the international women's networks DAWN and AWID and is a consultant for the Ford Foundation and UN. Her co-editors and contributors are academics and researchers around the world.