Aging and the Family-Work Link: A Comparative Analysis of Two Generations of Mexican Women (1936-1938 and 1951-1953)

Abstract

The implications of aging of the population in Mexico are complicated and in some respects, serious. Like many other developing countries, Mexico has no genuine state public policies designed to ensure the treatment, everyday care and well-being of senior citizens. In view of this discouraging outlook, it is families, mainly women, who continue to be responsible for looking after senior citizens thereby increasing these women’s workloads. The previous situation leads directly to the theme of the work-family link, as a result of which this article contains a proposal constituting an exploratory approach that attempts the simultaneous use of data sources clearly identified with qualitative and quantitative research styles. One of the main objectives of the article is to analyze the interrelationship between several of the life trajectories comprising women’s life courses. One of the most important trajectories is work, on the basis of which, in conjunction with the others (school, conjugal and reproductive), a typology was drawn up to describe the link between family and work. In order to achieve this, the problem has been inscribed within the life-course approach that rejects homogeneity and temporal linearity and assumes a multidimensional conception of time. With regard to the characteristics of the information sources, our starting point has been a purely qualitative study of a group of women from the urban middle class in Mexico, undertaken by one of the co-authors. As for the quantitative universe of reference, this consists of a group of middle-class urban women for two age cohorts: 1936–1938, and 1951–1953. The source of information comprises the Retrospective Demographic Survey taken by the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI, its acronym in Spanish) in 1998.