Hierarchies and Household Change in Postrevolutionary Cuba

Abstract

Although the matrifocal basis of the Cuban family, especially the close relationship between a woman, her children, and her female kin group, has historical roots in slavery, it is sustained by contemporary postrevolutionary structural forces, as seen by the dramatic increase in female-headed households in this period. In particular, matrifocality is linked to (1) the increase in women's labor force participation, which gave women more economic autonomy; (2) household structure, including the prevalence of consensual unions and of the extended family, that provides women with an alternative source of support; and (3) the leveling of prerevolutionary class and racial hierarchies, which eroded the prior status value of legal marriage. The increasing inequality arising in the Special Period poses dangers to this leveling and to Cuban women's autonomy, particularly among the competitive emerging sector of white-collar workers in tourism and other new enterprises.