Market Orientation and the Reconstitution of Women's Role in Philippine Agriculture

In: Review of radical political economics, Band 23, Heft 3-4, S. 106-128

Abstract

The effect of a development strategy on women can be attributed to a host of factors that leads either to their integration or marginalization in the development process. Some of these factors relate to the persistent gender inequalities in society while others are generated by a pattern of economic change that heightens class differentiation. This paper examines how agricultural commercialization, as a result of export cropping, has affected rural women - both as workers and as family members. Based on the time allocation of 374 women in the Philippines, it empirically investigates the changes brought about by the shift from corn (semi-subsistence) farming to sugar (export) production on the magnitude and form of women's productive roles at home, in the farm and in the labor market.