Ester Boserup

Her position countered the Malthusian theory that agricultural methods determine population via limits on food supply. Her best-known book on this subject, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth, presents a "dynamic analysis embracing all types of primitive agriculture." (Boserup, E. p 13) A major point of her book is that "necessity is the mother of invention". Her other major work, Woman's Role in Economic Development, explored the allocation of tasks between men and women, and inaugurated decades of subsequent work connecting issues of gender to those of economic development, pointing out that many economic burdens fell disproportionately on women. In an early review, her book was called "pioneering;" nearly five decades later, it has proved influential, having been cited by thousands of other works. It was her great belief that humanity would always find a way and was quoted in saying "The power of ingenuity would always outmatch that of demand". She also influenced the debate on women in the workforce and human development, and the possibility of better opportunities of work and education for women. Her work earned her three honorary doctorate degrees: one from Wageningen University; one from Brown University; and one from the University of Copenhagen. She was also elected to the US National Academy of Sciences as a Foreign Associate in 1989. The doctorates were in three different fields: agricultural, economic, and human sciences, respectively; the interdisciplinary nature of her work is reflected in these honors, just as it distinguished her career. That is what I have tried to do."

• Name — Ester Boserup • Birth Name — Ester Børgesen • Born — 18 May 1910 • Birthplace — Copenhagen, Denmark • Died — 24 September 1999

Her father was a Danish engineer, who died when she was two years old. The family was almost destitute for several years. Then, "encouraged by her mother and aware of her limited prospects without a good degree," she studied economic and agricultural development at the University of Copenhagen from 1929, and obtained her degree in theoretical economics in 1935. Ester had married Mogens Boserup when both were aged 21; the young couple lived on his allowance from his well-off family during their remaining university years. Their daughter, Birte, was born in 1937; their sons Anders, in 1940, and Ivan, in 1944. After graduation, Boserup worked for the Danish government from 1935 to 1947, right through the Nazi occupation in WWII. As head of its planning office, she worked on studies involving the effects of subsidies on trade. She made almost no reference to conflicts between family and work during her lifetime. The family moved to Geneva in 1947 to work with the UN Economic Commission of Europe (ECE). In 1957, she and Mogens worked in India in a research project run by Gunnar Myrdal; she and Mogens worked in India until 1960. For the rest of her life, she worked as a consultant and writer. She and Mogens lived in Senegal for a year between 1964 and 1965, while he was leading the UN's effort to help establish the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning. She was based in Copenhagen until her husband died in 1980, after which she settled near Geneva. In her later years, in the 1990s, she lived in Ticino, Switzerland.

Boserup also contributed to the discourse surrounding gender and development practices with her 1970 work Woman's Role in Economic Development. The work is "the first investigation ever undertaken into what happens to women in the process of economic and social growth throughout the Third World". Boserup's work is widely credited as a motivation behind the United Nations Decade for Women. In addition, according to the foreword in the 1989 edition by Swasti Mitter, "It is [Boserup's] committed and scholarly work that inspired the UN Decade for Women between 1975 and 1985, and that has encouraged aid agencies to question the assumption of gender neutrality in the costs as well as in the benefits of development". Boserup's text evaluated how work was divided between men and women, the types of jobs that constituted productive work, and the type of education women needed to enhance development. This text marked a shift in the Women in Development (WID) debates because it argued that women's contributions, both domestic and in the paid workforce, contributed to national economies. Many liberal feminists took Boserup's analysis further to argue that the costs of modern economic development were shouldered by women. Woman's Role in Economic Development, too, has been republished many times, appearing in print in at least a half dozen languages.

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Ester Boserup was born on 18 May 1910 in Copenhagen. Boserup held the nationality of Kingdom of Denmark. Boserup was educated at University of Copenhagen. Married to: Mogens Boserup. Recorded child: Ivan Boserup. Boserup died on 24 September 1999 in Ascona. Boserup is buried at Ordrup Cemetery.

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