Résumé en anglais

Since the birth of modern development economics in the period immediately following the Second World War, attention has been mostly directed to the determinants of long-term economic growth performance and, in a subsequent stage, to issues of income distribution and poverty reduction. Social engineering refers to deliberate attempts, often under the form of legislative moves, to promote changes in customs and norms that hurt the interests of marginalized population groups. This implies discussing the main possible interaction frameworks leading to anti-women equilibria, and deriving policy implications from the corresponding games. The theoretical arguments are illustrated by examples drawn from available empirical works, thus providing a reasoned survey of the literature. This chapter explores the analytical conditions under which social engineering is more or less likely to succeed than more indirect approaches when it comes to suppressing gender-biased customs.