Homework and industrial development: Gender roles and restructuring in the Spanish shoe industryWorld Development

Abstract:
In analyzing the changing role of women's labor in the Spanish shoe industry, the article shows that women's social roles help shape the process of productive decentralization. Survey data detail the movement of homeworkers out of more stable factory jobs, and interviews reveal the grueling schedules of homeworkers juggling household and industrial work. Yet rather than merely confirming the view that women's work and wages are substandard, the data suggest that conditions surrounding homework severely limit outworkers' opportunities to contribute to industrial innovation and growth.