Expanding Opportunity for Women and Girls

As economies change, so do the opportunities open to women and girls, but not at the same pace everywhere. CHP defines progress as expanding people's real freedoms to live lives they value. For women and girls, those freedoms include choices about work, education, marriage and family.

Alice Evans studies why some societies have moved further toward gender equality than others. She examines how employment, cities, family and kinship systems, and collective action shape women's opportunities and autonomy. Charles Efferson and Sonja Vogt have studied female genital cutting in Sudan and son bias, a preference for sons over daughters, in Armenia. People may not state their views on either topic openly, so Efferson and Vogt developed new ways to measure attitudes.