Women's roles in recession and economic restructuring in Mexico and the Philippines

Abstract

With reference to case study material from Mexico and the Philippines, this article examines the assertion that recession and adjustment in developing countries have impacted more heavily upon women than men in low-income urban households. Although the analysis finds that women do bear a greater share of the costs of economic restructuring, the consequences in respect of changes in their lives are variable. Critical factors affecting the nature and magnitude of impacts are the national and local economic contexts in which neo-liberal reforms have taken place, and variations in gender roles and relations both at grassroots and wider societal levels. Following a general conceptual overview of gender-specific aspects of recession and structural adjustment in developing countries, and discussions of key parameters of gender roles and relations in Mexico and the Philippines which are likely to have a bearing on the ways in which women's lives are affected by restructuring, case studies are presented of economic change and the consequences for poor urban populations in Mexico and the Philippines in the 1980s and 1990s. The concluding section identifies key similarities and differences in the gender-specific impacts of recession and adjustment, with reference not only to practical dimensions of change but what they mean for women in ideological terms. While important changes in gender roles seem to occur under structural adjustment, particularly in respect of women's increased role in generating income for the households, changes in gender relations are less immediate and/or obvious.