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Latin American Women In The Workforce And Family Living Essay, Research Paper

Latin American Women In The Workforce and Family Living

The European conquest of the New World altered the lives of indigenous women. European women did not arrive to the New World only for years after the initial invasions. Indian women were continuously exploited in the form of labor, catering, and sexual gratification. Elite Indian women were able to gain a somewhat privileged position through their liaisons with the European men. As more and more European women began to arrive in the New World, Indian women were confined to the bottom of the ethnic and class hierarchy.

A particular concern of the colonists was that their purity of blood be preserved, meaning that no black or Indian people could enter into the family lineage. This in return caused careful controlling of women s behavior. Under the regulation of patria potestad, women remained under the legal authority of their fathers until marriage, when authority was transferred to their husbands.

During the nineteenth century women s public life was limited. Women also still remained legally minors. There were some advances in education which helped some women to enter into professions. There were also alterations of civic codes which ultimately abolished the patria potestad laws in many countries. Latin American women entered the 20th century with better education and legal status but with still restricted roles. Women initiated campaigns for equal political and civil rights. But despite some gains they continued to be discriminated, shaped by machismo, and poor women faced the double duty of family and employment.

According to historical records almost 30 percent of households in the city of Sao Paulo in 1765, were headed by women that were single, married whose husbands were absent, or widows. By 1802, this rose to 44 percent, falling to 39 percent by 1836. This was due to the need of male labor migration in an economy based primarily on plantation agriculture. Taking the average age of female heads it is noticed that the female heads are an average of 7 years older than male heads. Many of the female heads are widows. Female heads earn less income than their male counter parts and on an average have less education than the males.

One of the most notable characteristics of today s poverty in Latin America is the growing number of women among the poor. Today about 20 percent of the poorest households in Latin America are headed by women, but in some cities the percentage rises to almost 38 percent. A review of 22 studies of women-headed households in Latin America reveals that there is a strong correlation between female head-ship and poverty, and that such households are increasing in number.

There are many reasons why we are seeing a rise in the number of households headed by women which are in poverty. Women have less access to land, credit and technologies, therefore women farmers have to work longer hours and they have fewer assets and lower incomes than men farmers. Female headed households are likely to be poorer than male-headed households because they have fewer working members of the family, they have lower average wage earnings, less access to jobs and productive resources. Most Latin American women have less education than men. These are some of the key reasons why we are seeing a increase in poor households headed by women.

There are more and more women working as wage laborers. Fruit companies in Chile rely exclusively on women for harvesting, processing, and packing fruit. In Columbia women cultivate and pack flowers. In general they are paid less than men. In Honduras for example women are paid 70 percent of the male wage for performing the same tasks in tobacco cultivation. It is clear that the women who do participate in the labor force and have the same education level as men are discriminated from men. Discrimination is clearly an important factor. It is not so much that female -headed households have lower incomes because of them having more children or fewer adults, but clearly the head of the household being a female, earns less.

Because there are many women who lack education and skills, women in formal sector employment tend to be clustered in jobs that offer little potential for training or advancement. In Brazil, Chile, and Peru over 50 percent of economically active women work in the service sector (1988). Most of the women who do have better paying jobs in the formal sector are self employed. Usually self-employment doesn t have much growth potential.

The problem with women in the workforce doesn t stop there. In households where there is a male head of the house, a women s income is still highly depended on. Female income is often a secondary or tertiary source of income. Many rural families rely upon the work of its female members for most of its food. Traditionally the money earned by men is used only for corn and firewood, forcing the wife to develop her own income in order to provide for other family necessities. With less and less land becoming available for cultivation and unable to produce enough corn for the year, the men are forced to find additional income in order to supplement what they can grow.

Female economic development has been hampered by the fact that women have found themselves utilizing traditional skills and market connections first established by their mothers and grandmothers. Rarely has a women ventured into learning a new kind of work. Complete reliance on traditional skills has limited the economic growth of women. Women seem to be moving away from the traditional family businesses. Within the last generation the women are going from traditional women s work to more modern employment.

The traditional model is one in which the daughters help their mothers with their family business and in

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