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Gendered paths of industrialization: A cross-regional comparative analysis

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Abstract

This article both describes and explains gendered patterns of industrialization across 27 sectors and 10 countries in three regions. Contrary to common perceptions that women’s participation in manufacturing work is to be explained primarily by economic or cultural variables, I demonstrate the central role of an additional variable—the strength of unions—in delaying the entry of women into the manufacturing workforce. I argue that cross-national differences in gendered patterns of industrialization are intimately tied to the balance of employment in labor-intensive versus capital-intensive sectors, employment growth, fertility, and the strength of labor unions. Surprisingly, this study finds that supply variables have weak effects on feminization. Demand-side factors and the power of unions have stronger and more consistent effects on feminization than cultural factors that shape the supply characteristics of female labor.

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  1. Teri L. Caraway
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Teri L. Caraway is assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her research focuses on gender and comparative politics and the comparative political economy of labor. Her research has appeared inComparative Politics andStudies in Comparative International Development, and she has recently completed a book manuscript about the feminization of manufacturing work in developing countries.

My deepest thanks to Ernesto Calvo for his assistance with developing the time-series models in the analysis. I would also like to thank members of the Minnesota International Relations Colloquium, the anonymous reviewers, and the editorial collective atStudies in Comparative International Development, for their constructive feedback at the initial and final stages of the writing process.

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Caraway, T.L. Gendered paths of industrialization: A cross-regional comparative analysis. St Comp Int Dev 41, 26–52 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686306

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