Mexico's informal sector under structural adjustment : a gender and class analysis

Abstract

This thesis examines, within the theoretical framework of socialist feminism, Mexico's informal sector under Structural Adjustment. Upon the implementation of the neo-liberal economic restructuring program, Mexico shifted its orientation in economic development from state intervention to a free market approach based on the liberalization of trade and treatment of foreign investment, deregulation and the privatization of state enterprises. This transformation has resulted in massive layoffs, the drastic decrease of real wages, price increases and the cutback of public services and subsidies. These have in turn created material conditions which prompted many Mexicans to enter the informal sector to find or create employment.

It is in this context that the thesis conducts a gender and class analysis of the growth and changes of the informal sector, utilizing the existing statistical information in the literature. Two factors which contribute to the recent exponential increase of informal employment are highlighted: the downward movement of male proletarians from the formal to the informal sector; and the mobilization by households of a potential or reserve supply of female labour as part of their survival strategies. The thesis also investigates the growing precariousness and disparity among informal workers.

The thesis then examines the recent feminization of informal employment under the adjustment programs. Exploring the reasons why this has been occurring, the thesis reveals the interplay of gender and class which maintains cheap and flexible female labour. It argues that Mexico's restructuring has been facilitated by the informal proletarianization of women. In this context, however, the examination of "women's work" goes beyond their remunerated activities to their unremunerated domestic work. The thesis then concludes that the recent informal sector phenomenon under the adjustment programs have had particularly negative implications for women workers.