Naila Kabeer

Naila Kabeer (; born 28 January 1950) is an Indian-born British Bangladeshi social economist, research fellow, writer and professor at the London School of Economics. She was also president of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) from 2018 to 2019. She is on the editorial committee of journals such as Feminist Economist, Development and Change, Gender and Development, Third World Quarterly and the Canadian Journal of Development Studies. She works primarily on poverty, gender and social policy issues. Her research interests include gender, poverty, social exclusion, labour markets and livelihoods, social protection, focused on South and South East Asia.

Early life Kabeer was born in Calcutta, West Bengal, India, but her family migrated to East Bengal, (now Bangladesh) soon after. She went to school at Loreto Convent in Shillong in India. In 1969, she came to the United Kingdom for further education. She did her B.Sc. in economics at the London School of Economics, her M.Sc. in economics at University College London and then returned to the London School of Economics for her Ph.D. She completed her Ph.D. in 1985. Kabeer did her PhD fieldwork in a village in Bangladesh.

Career In 1985, Kabeer joined the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex as a research fellow and later became a professorial fellow. In 2010, she joined the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London as professor of development studies. In 2013, she joined the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science as professor of gender and international development, where she has been since. Kabeer was the Kerstin Hesselgren Professor at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden from 2004 to 2005 and Senior Sabaticant with International Development Research Centre Regional Office in South Asia from 2005 to 2006. She also worked as a senior research fellow at the Department for International Development, UK from 2009 to 2010. She remains as an emeritus fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex. She has been active in developing frameworks and methodologies for integrating gender concerns into policy and planning and has experience of training and advisory work with governments, bilateral and multilateral agencies and NGOs Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), Kabeer has worked with the United Nations Division for the Advancement for Women (DAW) as the lead author on The World Survey on Women and Development in 2009. For the UNRISD programme Social Policy and Development, she co-edited another Routledge/UNRISD volume "Social Protection As Development Policy: Asian Perspectives" in 2010.

Kabeer is currently on advisory editorial committee for the board of the Feminist Review Trust. She is also on the Advisory Committee for Better Work. She is currently engaged in research on social protection strategies and struggles for citizenship among workers in the informal economy. Kabeer is also involved in ERSC-DIFD Funded research on Gender and Labour Market dynamics in Bangladesh and India.

Selected bibliography Books

Chapters in books

Journal articles