Women's Multiple Roles in Economic Crisis

Abstract

The 1980s have been referred to as the lost decade in Latin America, marked by increasing external debt, inflation, unemployment, migration, and urbanization. The austerity measures taken by governments in an attempt to renegotiate their debts with international financial institutions have had concrete effects at the household level, particularly for working-class households. Governments are providing less and less in terms of basic necessities, and households are left to devise their own survival strategies. Women are key figures in these strategies. Structural adjustment policies create the need for women to increase their income-generating activities as real wages fall and prices rise, yet they also create the need for women to increase their reproductive activities as social services are cut. This often leads to conflicting pressures (Jelin and Feijoo, 1980) as women struggle to comply with the demands of their roles as mothers/housewives and workers outside the home. This article examines women's roles in the context of macroeconomic crisis through a case study of a low-income housing project in Quito, Ecuador.