Gender, Ethnicity and Familial Ideology in Georgetown, Guyana: Household Structure and Female Labour Force Participation Reconsidered

Abstract

It is broadly recognised in the gender and development literature that household structure has an impact on whether women enter income‐earning activities, and that female heads of households are more likely to work than women who live with men. Much of the empirical data upon which this research is based has relied on implicitly subsuming women into a homogeneous category by treating gender as the only or principal axis of differentiation. Through a comparative case study of African and Indian women from a low‐income urban community in Georgetown, Guyana, this article argues that the household/labour market relationship can be more fruitfully theorised through a consideration of the diverse and historically constructed experiences of gender.