Central American Men and Women in the Urban Informal Sector

Sáinz, Juan Pablo Pérez; Larín, Rafael Menjívar

doi:10.1017/s0022216x0001628x

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…This literature suggests that women are overrepresented in informal work and that men's and women's informal work differs systematically in terms of the type of work, remuneration levels, and control over labor and resources (Hoyman 1987;Montecinos 1994;Sainz and Larin 1994;Tuominen 1994;Dennis 1995;A. M. Scott 1995;Arizpe 1997;Espinal and Grasmuck 1997;McKeever 1998;Vincent 1998;T.…”

Section: Theorizing Informal Work and Gender In Contemporary Argentinamentioning

confidence: 99%

“The Reality of Today Has Required Us to Change”: Negotiating Gender Through Informal Work in Contemporary Argentina

Whitson

2010

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

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Within Argentina and beyond, the characteristics of work are changing as work becomes increasingly informal and precarious. Drawing on interviews conducted with informal workers in Buenos Aires in 2002, this article analyzes the ways that the informalization of work during the economic crisis in Argentina shaped the interplay between normative and practiced manifestations of gender, including masculinity and femininity. I argue that although normative understandings of gender in Argentina remain largely uncomplicated by economic restructuring and crisis, the activity of informal work interacts very differently with the performances of these norms, depending on the class and sex of the worker. In particular, I demonstrate that among workers in the popular classes, the characteristics of informal work serve to mediate tensions resulting from women's engagement in paid work, while constituting an obstacle to men's performance of the hegemonic masculinity of the provider. Among middle-class workers, however, engaging in informal work does not result in the same types of tensions between gender norms and performances. I conclude by questioning the long-term nature of changes in gender relations resulting from this crisis and stressing the importance of intersectionality on understanding impacts of economic change. In addressing the question of how an increased dependence on informal work has affected gender relations in Argentina, this article seeks to contribute to wider discussions regarding the malleability of gender systems and the need to understand the effects of global restructuring on local gender relations, including performances of masculinity.

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Section: Theorizing Informal Work and Gender In Contemporary Argentinamentioning

confidence: 99%

“The Reality of Today Has Required Us to Change”: Negotiating Gender Through Informal Work in Contemporary Argentina

Whitson

2010

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

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“…It appears, however, that many women renegotiate their domestic and childcare burdens in ways which are compatible with good mothering and do not constitute neglect. A survey conducted by Pe¨rez Sa¨inz and Menj|¨var Lar|¨n (1994) amongst informal sector workers in Managua revealed that one fifth of women do not participate in domestic activities at all, a finding which has significant implications for understandings of the double burden. Some of my participants devoted most of their time to paid work and political activism outside the home and as a result did very limited amounts of domestic work or childcare.…”

Section: Neoliberalism and Domestic Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Love and Money in an Age of Neoliberalism: Gender, Work, and Single Motherhood in Postrevolutionary Nicaragua

Cupples

2005

Environ Plan A

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Based on qualitative research conducted in 1999 and 2001 with a group of single mothers in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, this paper examines the contradictory impacts of neoliberalism on work, based on the understanding that economic restructuring can generate both crisis and a space for changes in gender identities. By focusing on the broader picture of women's work and on the intersections between paid and unpaid work, it discusses what happens to these intersections in times of intense political and economic change. Despite the hardships caused by neoliberalism, it appears that work is a site in which gender ideologies can be challenged. The paper has four main sections. First, it explores the ways in which certain cultural processes are intensified under neoliberalism which affects the relationship between constructions of masculinity and femininity. Second, it assesses the impact of neoliberalism on domestic work and the implications of this for GAD (gender and development) understandings of the double burden and of how the balance of women's paid and unpaid work changes under neoliberalism. Third, it examines the ways in which hegemonic understandings of femininities and motherhood and revolutionary legacies can be resistant to the neoliberal present. Finally, it discusses how work under neoliberalism can be a site of female empowerment or self-esteem.

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“…Por otro lado, diversos estudios sobre la maquila en Centroamérica muestran un perfil común de la fuerza laboral empleada (Pérez Sáinz y Castellanos 1991;Altenburg 1993;Price Waterhouse 1993;Pérez Sáinz 1994). Se está ante una fuerza laboral femenina, joven y con poco nivel de instrucción.…”

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Los impactos de la globalización en el mundo laboral centroamericano

Sáinz¹

2003

ERLACS

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Centroamérica, como el resto de América Latina, se ha insertado, durante la década de los 90, en el proceso de globalización.1 En todos los países, se han aplicado programas de ajuste de estructural que, aunque con resultados disímiles, han iniciado el proceso de transformación del modelo acumulativo. En este mismo sentido, han emergido toda una serie de nuevas actividades que insinúan una articulación distinta a la economía mundial. Las denominadas agroexportaciones no tradicionales, la industria de exportación y el turismo serían sus ejemplos más visibles. Pero, igualmente, existe otra inserción a la globalización que no es producto ni de las estrategias empresariales ni de las políticas gubernamentales sino de la propia sociedad centroamericana: la migración laboral transnacional.2 Además se detecta nuevas dinámicas de regionalización como la movilidad de capitales que están definiendo una base centroamericana de acumulación, la ya mencionada migración laboral (en su dimensión intrarregional) y la emergencia de una nueva institucionalidad no sólo supra-estatal sino también de la propia sociedad civil. Por consiguiente, se puede decir que la región se encuentra ante un nuevo momento histórico.Pero este nuevo momento no supone una ruptura radical con el pasado. Si bien la región entra en una etapa económica que pudiera superar el modelo agroexportador tradicional, implantado a fines del siglo XIX, y en una fase política donde los regímenes democráticos, basados en elecciones competitivas, se han generalizado, hay lastres del período anterior. Persisten el empobrecimiento y la desigualdad social aunque hayan cambiado de naturaleza. Para fines de los 90, la pobreza afecta aún a casi un quinto de los hogares en Costa Rica; en torno a la mitad de las unidades domésticas en El Salvador y Guatemala; y a la gran mayoría de las familias en Nicaragua y, sobre todo, en Honduras.3 En este sentido, como hemos argumentado en otro texto (Pérez Sáinz 1999a), lo social es la gran cuenta pendiente de la modernización centroamericana. Es a partir de esta persistencia de la cuestión social que planteamos que el tiempo de la región es aún el de la modernización. Por consiguiente, nuestra propuesta es que América Central se encuentra cruzada por las dos temporalidades, la impuesta por la globalización como la propia suya, y que el actual momento puede ser caracterizado como de modernización globalizada. 4 Insistiendo en esta gran cuenta pendiente, el presente texto quiere ver qué posibilidades de reducción de déficits sociales hay en este nuevo momento de modernización globalizada. Para éllo nos queremos centrar en el mundo del trabajo que constituye, al respecto, un observatorio ideal ya que el mismo representa la principal articulación entre economía y sociedad. Este mundo laboral, como se ha argumentado en otro trabajo, viene signado por tres fenómenos con raíces históricas profundas: generación de empleo insuficiente; persistencia de precariedad laboral;

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Central American Men and Women in the Urban Informal Sector

Cited by 6 publications

References 1 publication

“The Reality of Today Has Required Us to Change”: Negotiating Gender Through Informal Work in Contemporary Argentina

“The Reality of Today Has Required Us to Change”: Negotiating Gender Through Informal Work in Contemporary Argentina

Love and Money in an Age of Neoliberalism: Gender, Work, and Single Motherhood in Postrevolutionary Nicaragua

Los impactos de la globalización en el mundo laboral centroamericano

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