This article reveals the array of time-space arrangements that a group of women
home-based workers deploy to accommodate paid work in their homes. Based on in-depth
interviews with the workers in Tijuana, Mexico, the article emphasizes the
consequences of working at home for gender relations within the family. The main
argument of this article holds that the variety of women’s time-space
strategies may result in a variety of situations of integration or conflict. The
diversity of ways in which women organize productive and reproductive activities
within the household and their consequences are crosscut by their social class,
occupation, educational level, and life course, as well as the larger context of
their lives. Although working at home, as a strategy of income generation, gives
women a new economic role and helps them to negotiate their gender roles and
relations, it also may reinforce women’s traditional roles.
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