Carrying the Burdens of Adjustment and Globalization

Abstract

This article argues that sub-Saharan African women, particularly those that work in the microenterprise sector, have been affected by globalization. While these women have seldom been considered in the social science literature that documents the impact of globalization on women who work in assembly production, data-processing operations, domestic work and sex tourism, globalization does impact the business operations of African women in the microenterprise sector of the economy. Based upon fieldwork conducted among entrepreneurs in hairdressing and sewing in urban Zimbabwe, this study documents the negative effects of adjustment policies and globalization on these enterprises over the past decade. Their businesses have suffered due to increased costs, competition and bans on imported raw materials that are specifically related to the economic structural adjustment program enacted in late 1990 at the behest of the IMF and the World Bank. Using a feminist political economy paradigm, the experiences of these women are considered against the backdrop of the economic and political development of Zimbabwe from the colonial to the post-independence periods.