I was born in India and divided my childhood between India, where I went to school, and Bangladesh (what was then East Pakistan) where my family lived. I did my undergraduate studies in Economics at the LSE followed by an M.Sc in Economics at the University College, London before returning to register for a PhD in Economics at the LSE – although half way through I switched from Economics to the Population Studies department. After completing my PhD, I joined the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex when I remained till 2010. I joined the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and then, in 2013, I completed a full circle and returned to LSE, initially in the Department of Gender Studies and then in the Department of International Development. I retired at the end of 2024 but retain my links with the Institute of Development Studies as Emeritus Fellow, with the University of Sussex who awarded me an honorary doctorate and with the LSE as Emeritus Professor. I am also a faculty member of the International Inequalities Institute at the LSE where I direct a research programme on Gender Justice and the Wellbeing Economy. I have been a Fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences since 2013.

I have done short stints in other institutions as well. I was part time Senior Research Fellow at the Department for International Development, UK between 2009-2010, the Kerstin Hesselgren Professor at the University of Goteberg, Sweden in 2004-2005, Senior Sabaticant for the International Development Research Centre in Canada,  based in its Regional Office in South Asia in Delhi between 2005-2006 and a Richard Von Weizsacker Fellow at the Bosch Academy in Berlin. I have also collaborated on several research projects with the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development Studies in Bangladesh and was recently joined it as an Honorary Professorial Fellow. I am very pleased with these honorary links with the instituions that have shaped my academic career and intellectual trajectory.

I am interested in various aspects of inequality and how they play out within households, labour markets and the wider economy. I am also interested in forms of collective action by poor and marginalized groups that seek a more just distribution of power, resources and political voice and in what this tells us about the relationship between individual empowerment and societal justice. Gender is obviously an important example of these inequalities but I am also interested in how gender intersects with other socio-economic inequalities.  Much of my work focuses on South Asia but I have worked in a number of other countries as well.

My publications include Reversed realities: gender hierarchies in development thought (Verso, 1994) The power to choose: Bangladeshi women and labour supply decision-making in London and Dhaka (Verso, 2000 and Kali for Women 2001)  Gender and social protection in the informal economy (Commonwealth Secretriat/Routledge, 2008), Can the MDGs provide a pathway to social justice? The challenge of intersecting inequalities (IDS/MDG Achievement Fund, 2010) and Organizing women workers in the informal economy: beyond the weapons of weak (Zed Press, 2013).  

My most recent book, and my favorurite, is called ‘Renegotiating patriarchy: Gender, agency and the Bangladesh Paradox’ and is available Open Access on the LSE Press and free to download from their website. (https://press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.31389/lsepress.rpg)

(See my blog on the importance of Open Access for democratizing access to knowledge: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsepress/2025/10/20/who-owns-knowledge-an-interview-with-naila-kabeer/)

I have always sought to link my research with the ‘real’ world of policy and practice which I have done through various training efforts, first the Women, Men and Development short course I directed at IDS, Sussex for several years and then later more regional training and advisory work with governments (eg. India, Bangladesh and the Gambia), various international and bilateral organizations, such as the World Bank, UNDP, UNIFEM, NORAD, SIDA, Oxfam and with national NGOs such as BRAC (which had gone international) PRADAN and Nijera Kori. I am on the advisory committee of the ILO’s Better Works Program and on the Advisory Boards of United Nations Research on Social Development and United Nations University-International Institute for Global Health.

I am on the editorial committees of a number of terrific  journals including Feminist Economics, Development and Change, Gender and Development, Bangladesh Development Studies and the European Journal of Development Studies.  I am a member of the International Association of Feminist Economics, and its President in 2018 and of the Development Studies Association and on its council for a number of years. I was on the UN High Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP (2025-2026) and recently joined UN Women’s Leadership Network.