Abena Oduro

Abena Frempongmaa Daagye Oduro (born 10 February 1959) is the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Ghana where she also holds the position of Associate Professor of the Department of Economics. Having had 30 years of experience teaching, her areas of specialization are centred around gender and asset management, international economics, poverty analysis, macroeconomic theory and trade policy. Abena Oduro is the first Vice President of the Association for the Advancement of African Women Economists (AAAWE) where Professor of Economics in University of Kansas, Elizabeth Asiedu, is the founder and president. She is also the president elect of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE), her tenure will be 2021 to 2022.
Education.
Abena Oduro, a Ghanaian national, obtained her O levels and A levels at Aburi Girls Secondary School and Wesley Girls High School respectively, both located in Ghana. She went on to further her education in University of Glasgow in 1978 where she received an M.A.(Hons) First Class in Political Economy and Geography. She then stayed on in the University of Glasgow to obtain an M.Litt in Economics in 1982 and started her PhD program (1983–1987) which she did not complete. Oduro was awarded for her academic performance through The Royal Scottish Geographical Medal for Outstanding Performance (1982) and the University of Glasgow Scholarship (1983).
Professional experience and affiliations.
Abena Oduro is currently a Senior Economics Lecturer in the University of Ghana where she has been working since 1989 teaching macroeconomic theory, international economics and international trade theory in the undergraduate and post-graduate levels. In 1999, she was appointed as the Project Officer for the Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA) till 2001 where she went on to be a Research Fellow in this same organization until 2006. While holding this position, she became a visiting lecturer for the Council on African Studies at Yale University in 2003.
Furthermore, aside being the Vice Dean of the Faculty Social Studies, Abena Oduro is also the Director of the Centre for Social Policy Studies in the University of Ghana and the Co-Director for the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) which is an organization setup to create a platform for scholars within the Social Science field in Sub Saharan Africa to share and popularize their research. She is also the associate editor of Feminist Economics and a co-editor for the Engendering Economic Policy in Africa issue (2015).
Oduro is part of the African Economic Research Consortium, American Economic Association and the International Association for Feminist Economics where she holds active membership roles in all of these groups respectively. Currently, she is the Head Research Investigator for the Swiss Programme for Research and Global Issues for Development.
Research and academic work.
Abena Frempongmaa Daagye Oduro's work cuts across a variety of topics namely trade policy, asset management and ownership, poverty and gender analysis, labour market in low income countries and inequality and vulnerability analysis. Aside these areas of specialization, some of her work is also centred around World Trade Organization (WTO) issues and the economics of education. Her work has been published on platforms such as World Development and African Development Review and SSRN.
Selected scholarship.
"Ownership of the Place of Residence in Ghana: A Gender Analysis" (2015).
Gender analysis and asset management and control are one of the recurring themes that are present in a lot of Abena Oduro's work. Using economic tools such as regression analysis, she explores the disparity in home ownership between men and women in Ghana. In doing so, she also delves into issues relating to rights such as the right to sell or freedom to use ones property through a critical feminist theory lens. Abena Oduro, in this paper, explores the effect certain aspects of Ghanaian culture has on the level of control a woman has in exercising her rights to sell or to use her home as collateral. She concludes by highlighting the need to explore this trend on a more microlevel; in terms of ethnic groups.
"Ethnicity and Wage Determination in Ghana" (2000).
In this paper, Oduro and Abigail Barr explore the relationship between a worker's ethnic group and their earnings. They also investigate any forms of pay discrimination by virtue of relations between the worker and the employer, ethnic group and their work experience. This research is part of the World Bank's Policy Research under "The Economics of Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship in Africa." Their findings saw that there were pay differentials by ethnic group- the Northerners were typically earning less mainly because of the average level of education people from that part of Ghana have in a lifetime thereby reducing their earning power and employment mobility. Their paper also showed that relatives of employers were also paid more and there is a preference of inexperienced workers from the same ethnic group than other ethnic groups.
"Gendered Paths to Asset Accumulation: Markets, Savings and Credit in Developing Countries" (2019).
This paper written by Carmen Diana Deere, Abena Oduro, Hema Swaminathan, Zachary Catanzarite and J.Y. Suchitra was published in the Feminist Economics journal and explores the gender disparity in asset ownership and accumulation. Funding and owning assets such as houses, land, real estates, businesses and agriculture have shown to be more difficult for women than it is for men in the case study countries which are Ecuador, Ghana and Karnataka, India. Abena Oduro provides her research findings within the Ghanaian context which share the same aforementioned trend and problems. The paper suggests that, in order to bridge this gap in capital and land accumulation, there is a need to promote financial inclusion which focuses on both savings and credits.
"Closing the Gender Gaps in Ghana" (2017).
Abena Oduro and Charles Ackah explore gender gaps in asset accumulation, education and employment through a historical sense. They propose that although there have been policy changes to address this issue, they have not been effective enough to cause a dramatic change especially in educational levels of women in Ghana. With respect to wages, there is a fairly large gender wage gap especially when taking into account domestic work of women. Oduro and Ackah propose the need to have stronger policies centred around changing values and certain cultural norms to address this problem and reduce this gender gap.
Notable conferences and seminars.
She has held talks at the International Association for Feminist Economics on:
Abena Oduro has also held seminars at the Global Studies Programme (GSP) where she spoke on:
Oduro presented at a World Bank conference on the topic: