Work,Gender,and Space: Women’s Home-Based Work in Tijuana,Mexico

Abstract

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.