UPLIFTING THE RACE THROUGH DOMESTICITY: CAPITALISM,AFRICAN-AMERICAN MIGRATION,AND THE HOUSEHOLD ECONOMY IN THE GREAT MIGRATION ERA OF 1916—1930

Abstract

The transformation of African Americans into a working-class population began during the World War I Great Migration era. In response to the rise in racial intolerance and the urgency of migrants’ needs, the Pittsburgh Urban League was formed in 1918 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Using a historical case study, this article suggests that the League attempted to promote domesticity among married migrant women for the purpose of racial uplift. This paper examines the implications of this strategy for migrant households and Pittsburgh industry. The study explores the relationship between patriarchy and capitalism in the formation of working-class families by discussing the role of racial ideologies in this process. The author argues that studies of white women’s domesticity and reproductive labor also must address the ways in which race has affected their incorporation into capitalist class systems in countries where race is a central organizing feature of the political economy.     

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN? GENDER,LABOR, AND DISCOURSE IN THE NOIDA EXPORT PROCESSING ZONE AND DELHI

Abstract

Export processing zones (EPZs) are like islands of globalization. Much of the literature on EPZs and export-oriented industries (EOIs) notes a preponderance of women who are constructed as “cheap,” “nimble fingered,” and “docile” labor. This literature is dominated by socialist feminist thinkers, and this paper argues that there is a need to incorporate the insights of postmodern feminist thinkers. The article focuses on the role that language, discourse, and subjectivity play in the gendering process in handmade jewelry production in the Noida Export Processing Zone (NEPZ) and in the ranch production units related by common ownership in Delhi, India. It thus gives “voices” to women and men, and brings out their agency in structuring the labor market. The study confirms that gender division of labor is a product of discursive and material practices that are reproduced through discourses into which different actors invest, and that feed into the gendered subjective identities of these actors.     

“SWEEPING THE HEAVENS FOR A COMET”: WOMEN,THE LANGUAGE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY,AND HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE US

Abstract

The importance of increased levels of education in improving the status of women throughout the world is well established. Higher levels of education are associated with lower birth rates, higher incomes, and greater autonomy for women. Yet, women's struggle to have a voice in higher education has been fraught with difficulties in the US and worldwide, particularly in overcoming widely held perceptions that limit their entrance into certain academic fields, tenured positions, and elite universities. This essay examines the role political economy has played in providing narratives that rationalize women's limited participation in higher education. By examining the representation of women in the academic culture of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century US, we can perhaps better understand women's struggle to obtain an authoritative voice in higher education worldwide.     

Women's gender-type occupational mobility in Puerto Rico, 1950 — 80

Abstract

This paper investigates the patterns and determinants of women's mobility into and out of male-dominated occupations in Puerto Rico during a period of rapid development between the 1950s and the early 1980s. The paper uses data from the Puerto Rico Fertility and Family Planning Assessment of 1982, which includes detailed retrospective calendar histories of women's employment and other life-course changes. An event history approach allows an examination of the effects of human capital, family status, socialization, and opportunity structure in the labor market on women's entry into male-dominated occupations and their subsequent shifts to other occupations. The findings indicate that women's entry into male-dominated occupations increased for first jobs during this period of economic development, and there was modest cross gender-type mobility among women who experienced job changes. Finally, the variables more directly tapping labor-supply factors show stronger effects on women's labor-force behavior than those more directly tapping labor-demand factors.     

Altruism in individual and joint-giving decisions: What's gender got to do with it?

Abstract

This paper uses dictator experiments to examine gender differences in altruistic behavior in the United States when decisions are made individually and jointly. In anonymous individual giving to charity, women give substantially more than men, and in paired settings, mixed-sex groups give the most while all male pairs give the least. Evidence supports social information and negotiation effects as participants change giving toward that of their partners. Social image effects are found only in mixed-sex groups, indicating a gender-based component to the value of the social signal sent. Although men and women appear to have similar influence, the positive social image effect pushes giving in mixed-sex pairs above the sum of the members' individual gifts because the less altruistic partners (usually men) adjust their giving upward more than the more altruistic partners (usually women) reduce giving. Therefore, increasing women's participation in traditionally male spheres of decision making may result in more altruistic economic behavior.     

DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE? CULTURE'S ROLE IN THE PRODUCTIVE/UNPRODUCTIVE DICHOTOMY

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to reveal the justifications for different production boundaries historically. It finds that the boundaries were and are predicated on an untenable productive/unproductive dichotomy that was justified on select and shifting cultural norms. Furthermore, the production boundary informed other categories like labor, capital, income, and wealth. Hence, this article exposes the degree to which economic categories were and are unstable, fragile, contested, and culturally embedded constructs. It then explores feminist-inspired production boundaries based on third-person criterion and finds that these boundaries are likewise culturally contingent. However, these new production boundaries merely do what economics has always attempted to do, which is to theorize production under different cultural circumstances. This article reaffirms the mutually constitutive role of culture and economic categories.