The Politics of Reproduction: Households in the Mexican Industrial Transition

Abstract

A household-level analysis helps to reveal the dynamics of a transition in Mexican industrial strategy from the state-led import substitution strategy dominant from 1930 to 1976 to the neoliberal one dominant today. The results suggest that gender restructuring was a crucial element of industrial restructuring. The new industrial strategy, which relies on substantial foreign investment and adopts many of the norms of maquiladora production, has reshaped the industrial household into a multitude of forms. In the case study presented, these range from huge company-run single-sex dormitories to a variety of extended family households. In these new households the gender division of domestic labor has been renegotiated. Indepth interviews reveal that such micro-scale struggles result from, and influence, the new factory regime. There is a dialectical connection between gender relations (that is, specific gender divisions of domestic labor) and production regimes in Mexico. Public social policies reinforce this dynamic by shaping factory regimes gendered in specific ways. More generally, this research indicates that the dynamics of household and gender relations are essential to an understanding of largescale socioeconomic change.