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Institutional economics has long shown that entrepreneurship plays a critical role in the pursuit of economic development and wellbeing. At the same time, entrepreneurship is complex and evolving. The path between entrepreneurship and wellbeing is not clear-cut, and not all types of entrepreneurial activity are correlated with economic growth. Failure to acknowledge this heterogeneity has important consequences for entrepreneurship policy and human development, particularly where gender is concerned. The paper treats the complexities involved in defining and conceptualizing entrepreneurship, setting the stage for a focus on the gender dimension. As female entrepreneurial activity has risen in many countries around the world, it is important to acknowledge the diversity of such activity and the ways it does (or does not) correspond to an increase in human freedom. Highlighting the differences between necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship, this paper illustrates the formal and informal institutions that shape gender inequity in the entrepreneurial environment. It concludes with some suggestions for addressing this important issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the recovery in Thailand after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The country worst affected by the tsunami was Indonesia, while in Thailand about 8,000 people were assumed dead. In all the countries affected more females were killed than males. Disasters test the strength of a society's structures and relationships, and this paper focuses on the interplay between gender, vulnerability and social resilience. It provides an overview of social resilience as a concept and theory and discusses vulnerability and resilience in disaster situations. The paper is based on findings from a long period of anthropological fieldwork, which included interviews with survivors and relatives and with Buddhist monks and nuns. Buddhist temples, monks and nuns played important roles after the tsunami and became a refuge for survivors, and this paper explores religion as a resilience factor. Religious explanations and daily and other religious practices were of major significance in the recovery process, and Thai people have shown themselves to be both vulnerable and resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concern about the sexual and reproductive health of young people has been mounting recently in Thailand. Unequal gender relations have a considerable influence on the lives of young people, especially young women, yet few studies have explored the ways in which they have impacted on provision of sexual health care. Drawing upon data from a qualitative study in Northern Thailand, this paper explores the views and experiences of young people in seeking health care, highlighting the kinds of gender double standards and power imbalances that may pose obstacles to their use of sexual and reproductive health services. Findings reveal the vulnerability of sexually active young women in seeking support and care from partners, parents, and service providers. Those who experience adverse outcomes of sexual activity, such as unwanted pregnancy or infection, report facing indifference, victim blaming, or the threat of abandonment by their partners. Because of their fear of disclosure to their parents and communities, of their sexual activity, they opt for clandestine and unsafe abortion and seek the counsel of peers and drugstores rather than parents and providers. At the service provider level, young women report facing threatening and judgemental attitudes, indifferent counselling, and possible violation of confidentiality. This is in marked contrast to the treatment of young men, who generally meet with a more sympathetic and accepting response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an ethnographic study of gender and sexuality as factors within contemporary Thai factory women's subjectivities. Competing discourses of what it means to be a woman in contemporary Thai society make women's self-presentations fluid and incoherent. Data from participant-observation and open-ended interviews suggest that the fluidity and inconsistency of women's self-presentations reflect both their negative experiences and oppression within the Thai patriarchal system, and women's strength and resistance to the normative discourses that oppress them. By naming or reinterpreting experiences and desires in their own terms, Thai factory women can redraw elements of their own lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few researchers have concerned themselves with qualitative gender-comparative studies of women's and men's prison trajectories – particularly appraisals relating to international cross border drug trafficking (ICBDT). Using life history interviews with prisoners incarcerated in three regions of Thailand, we describe, examine and compare the features of women's and men's pathways to prison for ICBDT. Overall, the findings point to both similarities and divergences in experiences by gender. Three pathways to prison emerged for both women and men: (1) 'deviant' lifestyle, (2) economic familial provisioning and (3) inexperience and deception. However, gendered variance was found within these pathways; an additional woman-only trajectory, the romantic susceptibility pathway, was also identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on the grassroots experiences and research of MAP Foundation to examine the gendered impacts of the economic downturn on migrants from Burma/Myanmar1 who are working in Thailand. The article looks through a gender lens at the wages, working conditions, family relations and safety and security issues. It finds that migrant women have experienced decreases in wages, lay-offs, increased restrictions on reproductive rights and increased risks of harassment and extortion as a result of the economic downturn. It also finds that the usually resilient Burmese migrant communities are being stretched beyond their limits, and need urgent protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I aim to examine the ways in which gender concerns have been 'mainstreamed' into government activities. I focus on three countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region: Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. While gender mainstreaming policies are in place at the national level in these countries, the 'evaporation' (Longwe 1995) of such policies at the lower levels has been a problem. The article concentrates on challenges of implementation which exist at provincial/commune and department levels. Drawing on the experience of middle- and low-level government officers, I argue here that policy evaporation occurs partly because of lack of political commitment to gender mainstreaming at different levels. Another problem is that the concept of gender mainstreaming itself remains vague, and is thus difficult to translate into action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]