Dependent Development and the Division of Labor by Sex

Venezuela

Bibliographic Data

ID5127045
AuthorsM Schmink (0000-0002-7150-2863, The University of Texas at Austin, corresponding author)
Year1977
Volume4
Issue1-2
Pages153-179
Publication date1977-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLatin American Perspectives (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-582X • E-ISSN: 1552-678X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0094582x7700400113
OpenAlexW2023838922
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited12

Because the values associated with sex roles are particularly tenacious, women's emancipation is likely to be one of the last frontiers of any social movement, and thus serves as a crude index of social change. More importantly, a focus on women's role in development reflects a great deal about the internal or invisible workings of a society that underlie the more visible formal structures. Researchers have observed a positive relationship between women's participation in economic activities and higher levels of economic development (Wilensky, 1968), with the result that female labor force participation rates have occasionally been used as indicators of development. In the same way as such linear schemes as Rostow's (1971) stage theory, these assumptions are based on the Western'i capitalist model and ignore the crucial relationships with the rest of the world. Recent studies question the belief that economic development enhances the status of women in the work force. Even in the highly-developed U.S. economy, Knudsen (1969:183) demonstrates a gradual but persistent decline in women's occupational economic and educational achievements, compared to those of men. Changes in economic systems may actually decrease women's participation in economic activities in underdeveloped countries, especially where traditional activities which were in the hands of women come to be replaced by modern male-dominated activities (Boserup, 'The development of many of the ideas in this paper took place during the Social Science Research Council-sponsored Inter-American Training Seminar on Feminine Perspectives in Social Science Research in Latin America, summer of 1974. I am grateful to all the other participants in the seminar who showed their willingness to exchange ideas, especially to Carmen Diana Deere and Heleieth Saffioti - whose stimulation is most responsible for the ideas expressed in this paper. A special thanks also goes to Charles Wood, who made invaluable suggestions throughout the development of this analysis, and to Harley Browning for first sparking my interest in the labor

Demographic economics · Development economics · Division of labour · Economic growth · Economics · Emancipation · Latin Americans · Political science · Politics · Social change · Sociology · Stage theory · Economic and Social Development · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Latin American socio-political dynamics · Psychology