Women Workers in the Maquiladoras and the debate on Global Labor Standards

• This paper represents a collective contribution to an ongoing debate on the benefits and disadvantages of export-based industrial jobs for women as well as on the implications of global labor standards for these types of jobs. On the basis of extensive research on women in Mexico’s and Central America’s maquiladoras (assembly plants that produce export goods), this paper aims to problematize the viewpoints that present export-based industry jobs as dignified alternatives for women in the South and to question the skepticism about global labor standards as a possible alternative for improving work conditions in all sectors producing for export. In so doing, the paper stresses three interrelated issues: a) the relevance of local and regional contexts that inform diverse industrialization paths over time, b) the agency the women workers represent, and c) the legal instruments already existent in our common efforts to improve working conditions.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

Keyword

export oriented growth

women's labor force participation

globalization

labor standards

maquiladoras

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)