The Gendered Economy is a new path-breaking series of short books which critically examine our understanding of the economy through the lens of gender and expose the androcentric biases within mainstream and heterodox economic analysis.

This book contributes to the series by providing a trenchant critique of the framing of prostitution as a form of labour, similar to other forms of service/care work, which can or should be regulated within a labour rights framework. It adds to the contributions feminist economists have made to critiquing the market economy and the commodification of more and more aspects of life. This book is timely given international policy developments around legalizing and regulating “sex work”. It is also timely given that the intersection of globalization, poverty and migration has resulted in an exponential rise in the number of migrant women within low status gendered occupations in post-industrial economies where the possibilities for choice and agency are highly constrained.

The Sex Economy shows not only how economic relationships, actions and institutions are directly affected by gender norms but also challenges many of the tenets that underpin the interpretation of how economies function. The commercial sex trade is highly gendered: demand is almost exclusively male, and supply is made up predominantly of women plus a small minority of young men and Trans people. The discourse surrounding prostitution has increasingly become one of market transactions, which are discussed both as a legitimate economic business and as employment comparable to other forms of low-paid work. So much so, that in some countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, it has been regulated within a labour-rights framework. Presenting primary data, extensive comparative reviews of policy approaches and the evidence emerging from countries where the state has sought to legalize and regulate sex work like any other sector of the economy, this book argues that there is an urgent need to interrogate the implications of this approach.

More fundamentally, this book grapples with questions asked by both economists and philosophers regarding the limits of markets.