Abstract
This article analyzes the effects of increasing economic integration between Mexico and the United States on workers in the California and Baja California fresh fruit and vegetable industry. This sector has experienced significant economic integration in labor, capital, and product markets over the past 10 years. During this period, wages in this sector have fallen on both sides of the border, and wages in Mexico are currently about one-sixth of California wages. Although workers in Baja and California perform the same tasks using the same technology and work for firms funded by some of the same U.S. capital, indigenous Mixtec women and children from the poor, southern state of Oaxaca are concentrated in the lower-paying jobs in Baja, whereas Mixtec and mestizo men have greater access to the higher-paying jobs in California. Differing labor processes on opposite sides of the border result in this binational gender and ethnic segmentation of the labor market, which will slow wage convergence even if remaining trade barriers are removed. Better enforcement of laws and broader employment generation strategies are necessary to reduce poverty among farm workers on both sides of the border.
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