Abstract
Jamaica’s economy is underdeveloped, creating and maintaining relatively few income-generating opportunities for its population. To survive, working-class women who assume primary economic and social responsibilities for their children must be economically active, whether in the retrenching formal sector or in the growing informal sector. The following article examines how their culture and economy merge to define Jamaican women and their roles.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bandarage, Asoka. “Women in Development: Liberalism, Marxism and Marxist-Feminism.”Development and Change. Vol. 5. London: Sage, 1984.
Beneria, Lourdes, ed.Women and Development: The Sexual Division of Labor in Rural Societies. New York: Praeger, 1982.
“Reproduction, Production and the Sexual Division of Labour.”Cambridge Journal of Economics, No. 3 (3), 1979. Black, Naomi, and Cottrell, Ann Baker, eds.Women and World Change: Equity Issues in Development. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1981.
Boserup, Ester.Woman’s Role in Economic Development. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1970.
Brody, Eugene B.Sex, Contraception and Motherhood in Jamaica. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.
Kuhn, Annette, and Ann Marie Wolpe, eds.Feminism and Materialism: Women and Modes of Production. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978.
Mathurin, Lucille. “The Historical Study of Women in Jamaica from 1655–1844.” Ph,D. Diss., University of the West Indies, 1974.
Meillassoux, Claude. “From Reproduction to Production: A Marxist Approach to Economic Anthropology.” In Harold Wolpe, Ed.,Articulation of Modes of Production. London: Rooutledge and Kegan Paul, 1980.
Mintz, Sidney W.Caribbean Transformations. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1974.
Portes, Alejandro, and John Walton.Labor, Class and the International System. New York: Academic Press, 1981.
Powell, Dorian L. “Female Labour Force Participation and Fertility: An Exploratory Study of Jamaican Women.”Social and Economic Studies, Kingston: Institute for Social and Economic Research, September, 1976.
Roberts, George W., and Sonya Sinclair.Women in Jamaica: Patterns of Reproduction and Family. Millwood, New York: KTO Press, 1978.
Signs, Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 7, no. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Steady, Filomina Chioma, ed.The Black Woman Cross-Culturally. Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing Co., 1981.
About this article
Cite this article
Mason, B.J. Jamaican working-class women: Producers and reproducers. The Review of Black Political Economy 14, 259–275 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02689893
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02689893