Gender Inequality and Women’s Wage Labour: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis

Abstract

Abstract In a number of developing countries, specifically for those open economies in the Caribbean Basin, export-led industrialization has assumed a major role in various development strategies during the 1980s. To be able to reduce unemployment and to acquire enough resources through foreign exchange for their debt payments, many countries have resorted to participating in export-led industrialization measures. The US Agency for International Development (AID) has asserted that countries in the Caribbean and Latin American regions should utilize such measures to achieve ‘security through development’ and political stability through providing funds for training, constructing export processing zones, and exporting market information. This chapter looks into how export manufacturing has led to how economies of the Caribbean Basin have veered away from traditional exports and the impacts of such on gender subordination and women's wage labour.