An Interview with Marianne Ferber: Founding feminist economist

Abstract

Marianne Ferber, a 75 year old professor emerita at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has been a central figure in developing both the literature and the institutions of feminist economics. She was one of the first and most effective scholars to challenge Gary Becker's analysis of the economics of the family. Her textbook, The Economics of Women, Men and Work , co-authored with Francine Blau and Anne Winkler, is the standard for courses on women in the economy. Her 400 page annotated bibliography, Women and Work, Paid and Unpaid , published in 1987, is the definitive source on economic research on women's work published up to that point. Her anthology, Beyond Economic Man: feminist theory and economics , co-edited with Julie Nelson, is the first to pull together the exciting new work being done by people who have an explicitly feminist perspective on economics. She was a member of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession in the 1970s, a founding member of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) and for 1995 and 1996 served as IAFFE's president. This interview was conducted in January 1998.