Free markets and the marriage market: structural adjustment, gender relations, and working conditions among Dominican women workers
Safa, H.I.
Environment and Planning a 31(2): 291-304
1999
ISSN/ISBN: 0308-518X PMID: 12294805 DOI: 10.1068/a310291Document Number: 280359
The relationship between economic conditions and marriage patterns in the Dominican Republic is analyzed using data collected in 1994 on women working in a free-trade zone. The author concludes that changes associated with structural adjustment appear to have contributed to a deterioration of the job market and a greater prevalence of female-headed households. It is shown that "structural adjustment increases the need for women to work, because of cuts in government programs, declining real wages, growing inflation, and a deterioration in male employment, which weakens the man's role as principal breadwinner and increases the importance and visibility of women's contribution to the household economy. This change in the gender composition of the labor force has encouraged some women to resist marriage and/or remarriage because the ¿marriage market' of eligible men willing and able to support a family has been reduced, contributing to greater marital instability."