Human Resource Development and Female Labour Force Participation in Brazil

Abstract

Historical studies of the female labour force in different societies have reached contradictory conclusions. It is common to read in the economic literature that women have historically been marginal to the process of production, and that their incorporation into labour market activities began either with commodity production or with the emergence of the capitalist mode of production. In pre-capitalist societies, women had made a great contribution to social production, because the domestic base of production made possible a combination of household activities and other types of labour. As the capitalist mode of production began to develop, women continued for a time to be part of the production process, both because of the domestic base and the small scale of production, and because of the fact that the location of factories did not then constitute a serious impediment to women’s work outside the home. However, with the further advance of the new methods of production, women were gradually excluded from the growing wage labour market and their lives became centred around the reproduction of labour power in the home.