IAFFE ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2027

In-person at Okayama University, Japan – July 2- 4 

Online conference, June 17-18

Inequalities, power structures, and transnational solidarities 

Conference Chair: Sakiko Fukuda-Parr

Inequality is a central concern of feminist economics. Decades of research have produced a rich literature and set of debates on the many aspects of gender inequality. These include the conceptual question of ‘inequality of what’ as well as attention to inequality across different spheres, from income, wealth, land and other assets, labor market outcomes, care work burdens, to access to public resources, among others. Feminist economics has advanced both the empirical measurement of gender inequality and our conceptual understanding of the dynamics by which inequalities in different dimensions reinforce one another. There has also been considerable theorizing about the structures of power that shape and reproduce inequalities such as bargaining within the household, gendered labor markets, distributive power of the state, and state capture by transnational corporations.  An important direction has been to explore power and oppression through the framework of intersectionality, given that gender bias overlaps with  race, class, migrant status and other identities.

Rising inequality is an urgent universal social and political challenge in our world today.   Extreme inequality of income and wealth has reached historically unprecedented levels and has emerged as a defining feature of 21st-century capitalism. This rise is arguably a product of monopoly finance capitalism that have created a deeply extractive and exploitative global economic system. This economic structure is neo-colonial in nature, resting on the dominant role of the North in formulating the rules of the global economic system - trade, debt, investment, intellectual property and more -  and the power of transnational corporations based in the North to control markets. These power structures have direct consequences for people, driving inequalities, as illustrated by examples such as the continued exploitation of workers in global value chains - such as in garment manufacturing in the Global South, characterized as a ‘sweatshop regime.  Workers who are predominantly female and often migrant are relentlessly squeezed while corporate profits and shareholder values rise. Such drivers of inequalities are not just  local or national, but global, requiring a transnational feminist response.  

The 2027 conference will be an opportunity for feminist economists to take stock of these contributions to our understanding of inequality while also exploring relatively new and under-studied political economic issues.  It will also be a space to explore strategies to overturn the power structures that drive these inequalities. The theme of the 2027 conference is therefore inequalities — in the plural — in their many aspects and spaces, their many manifestations, the methods and approaches used to research them, and the theorizing of power structures within and beyond the household, community, and transnational, local, regional, and global arenas, together with strategies for overcoming them. Topics may include, but are not limited to, inequality in different spheres, understanding the nature of inequality, and the structures of power that produce and reproduce inequalities:

• Income, wealth, land and other assets: measurement and dynamics of gender gaps in income, wealth, land and other productive assets

• Labor markets and employment: gendered labor market opportunities and outcomes, working conditions, across informal and formal employment, global value chains, and the structures of power that shape inequalities.

• Intersectionality: the interplay of gender with race, migration, ethnicity, national origin, nationality, citizenship, age, and class.

• Scales of inequality: inequality across household, community, national, rural-urban, regional, and global scales.

• Intra-household inequalities: bargaining, decision-making, resource allocation, and the burden of unpaid care and domestic work within households.

• North-South and neo-colonial power structures: feminist perspectives on reverse flows, debt/trade/taxation/capital flight, feminist decolonial perspectives.

• 21st Century capitalism, extractivism and intersectional inequality:  extreme inequality as a feature of 21st century capitalism, financialization, monopolies and intellectual property regimes as gendered structures.

• Environmental and ecological dimensions of extractivism: the gendered and unequal impacts of environmental stress, climate change, and the extraction of ecological resources.

• Power, institutions and the state: power structures in labor markets, financial systems, monopoly capital, and the state that shape and reproduce inequality.

• Patriarchy: socially embedded norms that recreate inequitable power structures and outcomes.

• Political trends hostile to gender equality: rising authoritarianism, ethno-nationalism, militarism, and backlash movements and implications for intersecting inequalities.

• Feminist economic strategies: strategies for transformative change to narrow inequalities including public policy, feminist agency and women’s empowerment, collective action and solidarity – intersectional and transnational. 

This conference is a forum for feminist economics scholarship and inquiry.  We solicit papers that address the conference theme, but not exclusively, and welcome proposals that engage in feminist economics inquiry on a broad range of issues concerned with theory, empirical evidence, policy critique and innovation, and action.  This includes topics such as - but not limited to:

• Social reproduction including the care economy, caring labor, unpaid labor, time-use.

• Labor markets, employment patterns, technology.

• Economic policies and discourses to address challenges to gender equality and human rights.

• Macroeconomics, economic development, international trade, environment and climate change.

• History of economic thought, economic theory, economic history.

• Barriers to feminist economics ideas and feminist economists.

• Gender in global political economy including international financial architecture, global health, armed conflict, social protection, and global norms.

We also recognize the interdisciplinary nature and methodological pluralism of our field, and that addresses how progressive economists can affect policy in today’s increasingly polarized political landscape. 

SUBMISSIONS: The submission portal will open by September 18, 2026. Abstracts (500 words max.) must be submitted online. Submissions can be made for individual papers, posters, organized panels, roundtables, and workshops. Submissions (abstracts) must be made in English.  Presentations at the conference may be in Japanese or English. The deadline for submission is November 16, 2026. 

Participants are limited to one paper presentation and one roundtable appearance each at the in-person conference and at the online conference. Additional co-authored papers are allowed only if they are presented by the co-author. These limitations allow participation by a maximum number of presenters. 

Please contact conference@iaffe.org with any questions or concerns.