Sylvia Chant is professor of geography at the London School of Economics. She has written many books, including Women-headed Households: Diversity and Dynamics in the Developing World and Mainstreaming Men in Gender and Development (with Matthew Gutmann). Nikki Craske is director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Liverpool and senior lecturer in Latin American Politics. Her publications include Women and Politics in Latin America (Polity Press and Rutgers University Press) and Gender and the Politics of Rights (coedited with Maxine Molyneux).

In Latin America, gender is a fundamental dimension of virtually every aspect of contemporary social, economic, and political life. Gender in Latin America is a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of gender in the region at the start of the twenty-first century. The authors draw on a wide range of research, including their own field-based expertise, to illuminate the importance of diversity in gender in this region. Debunking traditional stereotypes, the book charts changes and continuities in gender roles, relations and identities associated with the growing evidence produced by feminist scholarship and activism in the continent.
Chapters are arranged around themes such as gender and poverty, gender and population, gender and health, and gender and employment. Each chapter begins with an introduction to the core issues, and debates in the relevant field in order to set specific regional experiences within their global as well as regional contexts. The authors also refer to new bodies of literature on the subject, including those on men and masculinity, fatherhood, and sexuality.