Dr Rijak Grover

Degrees:     

• BA, BA, MSc (LSE)
• MPhil (Cantab)
• PhD (Cantab)

Awards:    

• ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Interests:    

Rijak is a Sociologist and Economist with a unique interdisciplinary background, whose research specialises in gender and labour.  Her PhD drew on extensive multi-year fieldwork with women farmers in northern Benin, West Africa.  Previously, Rijak worked at the World Bank and the U.N. as a Labour Economist on how to create more – and better quality – jobs for the global economy.

Currently, Rijak is Director of Studies for Economics at Murray Edwards and is keen to hear from students who are working on topics related to labour economics, gender, rural economic development, and poverty – especially in francophone Africa.

Biography:    

Rijak is an ESRC postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Sociology.  She earned her BA in Government and Politics and a BA in Anthropology from the University of Maryland.  Rijak holds a MSc in International Development from the London School of Economics (LSE) and MPhil in Sociology from the University of Cambridge.  After her MSc from LSE, Rijak worked for the World Bank and UN for five years as a Labour Economist.  In 2022, Rijak was awarded her PhD at the University of Cambridge for her thesis questioning the link between employment and empowerment for women farmers in the Atakora region of northern Benin.  Her PhD research had led to impact, and fed into a $10 million World Bank project on e-agriculture for smallholder women farmers.

Her research has received funding from the ESRC, Cambridge Political Economy Society (CPEST), Magdalene College Cambridge, and the Department of Sociology in Cambridge.  She is currently writing a book about decolonised feminist development economics based on data from her fieldwork in Atakora, Benin.

Publications:    

Grover, R (2022; forthcoming). “Who Cares? Identifying new dimensions to the care burden for women in the rural African context.” Antipode.
Grover, R (2021). She stays and she pays: Rural Women’s Labour and Empowerment in Atakora, Northern Benin. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge: Cambridge
Grover, R (2019). “Far from the Factory? Investigating how women travel to work in rural Cote d’Ivoire.” Journal of International Women's Studies, 20 (4), 24-38.
Kluve et al. (2019). "Do youth employment programs improve labor market outcomes? A quantitative review," World Development, 114 (C), 237-253.
World Bank (2018) Country Partnership Strategy for Benin FY 2019-2023 (Co-author; Gender Expert).
World Bank (2017) Strategic Country Diagnostic for Benin (Co-author; Gender Expert)
World Bank (2016) Looking at urbanization through a jobs lens (World Bank blog series).
World Bank (2015) The Business Case for Better Working Conditions (Lead Author).
World Bank (2014) Maroc et Tunisie: Développement de la main d'oeuvre (Lead Author).
Rossi, et al (eds.). (2014) Towards Better Work. Palgrave Macmillan: London. (Editorial Team).
IFC (2013) Chapter 8 on “Gender and Jobs” and Chapter 9 on “Quality of Jobs”, IFC Jobs Study.
ILO (2012). Haiti Baseline Data Report: Workers Perspectives from the Factory and Beyond.