A priority for Latin America is to find out about the situation of women and their work. This work is both paid and unpaid (and therefore often not recognised and almost always not known in detail). It is important above all because of the effects that neoliberal policies have on our lives, especially on employment and the demands of unpaid work. An investigation carried out in Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Chile (1), taking the nineties as a common point of reference, offers interesting evidence about this subject. In this decade there was a resurgence of ‘liberalisation’ policies and globalisation of the economy became tighter. In the first place, the countries mentioned are currently at different stages in the implementation of structural adjustment policies, economic liberalisation and globalisation. However, despite this diversity in stages or the rigour of the policies imposed, the observed results on work and employment are very similar in all of them. In summary, these effects are: Increased participation of women in the labour force, increasing unemployment and underemployment, growth of the informal sector of the economy, an increase in the number of hours in the working week, greater labour flexibility, low or zero creation of jobs. Participation of women in the labour force The increased participation of women in the labour force has various causes, among them the reduction in family incomes, the increase in male unemployment and an increasing number of women as heads of families. These factors produce the need for more people in the family to earn money, and women are pushed into formal or informal work. The fall in incomes leads to more poverty and this leads to more women and more young people joining the economically active population. This increase is seen in Bolivia, for example, where outsourcing has led to a marked increase in women working, doubling in urban areas and tripling in rural areas. In Colombia the percentage of women in the workforce has grown from 35.6% in 1970 to 53.3% in 1999. Basically this is due to more married or cohabiting women working. The percentage of single women working has not increased, and this supports the thesis that the increase is due to women being forced to look for work to increase family incomes. Unemployment and Informal Work The increase in rates of unemployment and underemployment, for both women and men, has been similar in all the countries studied. For example in Peru female unemployment stands at 10%, higher than for men despite the fact that women are better educated. Another of the features noted is the growth in the informal sector of the economy, seen in all these cases along with low or zero job creation. In the case of Bolivia, where the creation of employment is restricted to micro-enterprises, family enterprises, and in general to the subsistence economy, the need to raise productivity leads to superexploitation of the labour force. This also leads to the labour market becoming more informal, the under-utilisation of the labour force and falling incomes. In Peru, unpaid family workers make up 8.1% of urban employment, as they are a resource used intensively in micro and small establishments with the aim of lowering costs. This situation involves women particularly. Unpaid women workers form 12.2% of the workforce, while unpaid men account for 5.1%. As working conditions become more precarious, the number of hours worked per week has gone up, an effect of the need to increase the productivity of each worker, a fact amply documented in the whole region. This process especially affects women’s working conditions, given that the security of their work and income has reduced more obviously. In Mexico, 42% of the female labour force receives an income below the minimum, or no income at all. The number of people working just a few hours has increased. Although unemployment is relatively low, underemployment is high. We see outsourcing of work in commerce and services and therefore an increase in both the informal sector in retailing and homebased working. Women make up more and more of the workers in personal services and homebased work and in retailing and wholesaling. Work at home to produce goods for sale has increased to cope with the need to survive and is concentrated in self-employed work, handicraft production, micro-enterprises, street vendors and the sale of homemade goods, leading to an increase in the time spent on work in the house. There is also a greater participation in the labour force and high rates of migration of women from cities to the frontier areas. Flexibilisation Discrimination towards working women is evident, and there are major differences in salary between men and women. In Bolivia the differences in salary drop in direct relation to the educational level. Nevertheless, women’s participation in the workforce is marked by inequality of income, as they are mainly in low wage occupations and generally have a lower educational level and more limited work experience than the men. Also sexist education, which does not create an improved environment for getting jobs with better conditions, forces women into jobs with the lowest wages and the lower occupational groups. The employment situation of women should be analysed taking into account the burden of discrimination imposed by the dominant culture. This includes unequal pay, access to jobs needing lower qualifications and with lower productivity, long working days, barriers to entry to social protection programmes. In Chile, for example, the salary gap between men and women means that women’s earnings are 75% of men’s. In commerce, women earn 55% of what men earn, while professionals and technicians earn only 45% of male salaries In Chile work is becoming more flexible in four different ways: there is numerical flexibility, as the number of workers is changed in line with the varying demands of production; working time flexibility, where the number of hours worked is varied; functional flexibility, which requires the workers to do more than one job; and wage flexibility which changes wage rates in line with the specific conditions of the company. The consequences of these changes are growing insecurity and instability of employment and income; employment becomes increasingly precarious, leading to loss of social protection for the working population, loss of social benefits, and salaries which do not cover basic needs. Atypical forms of employment are also favoured with flexible forms of contract – fixed-term seasonal or short time contracts; contracts for specific services, home- working and subcontracting. Renewing Economic Theory Apart from illustrating certain tendencies, the studies referred to point up the need to renew our vision and methodologies in order to grasp the multiple, dynamic character of economic relations, the effects of macroeconomic policies, the processes and transformations in the world order which have economic, social and cultural repercussions. For women and feminists this translates into the need to review economic theory; this work has already begun with the aim of improving not only women’s economic conditions but also the policies based on this theory, as most of the bases and recommendations of economic policies are out of place and time. They are a product of the specific conditions of the periods in which they were developed and of the sexism which prevails in the world. The closeness of economic principles to a traditional definition of what is masculine and feminine determines, along with big gender prejudices, the study of how people produce, distribute and consume goods and services (2). A renewal of this could mean that the study of economics changes from being a conservative science, oriented to laissez-faire, to being a science which seriously investigates strategies for improving the welfare of society. A full understanding of economics must include making women visible as economic subjects, valuing their experiences and perspectives. For example, the inclusion of activities outside the market as a legitimate subject of study should de encouraged, given that the economic contribution made by women through activities of this kind is very high. One of the ways to make women visible is to give evidence of their work and demand that it be included in national statistics and accounts, especially in the Gross Domestic Product. Most of women’s contribution is excluded from this measure, as it is outside the activities traditionally recognised as economic. It is necessary to speed up the renewal of traditional economic theory from a gender perspective, to create a science which can produce valid knowledge and support policies which take into account the needs and interests of the whole population, of which we women are about 50%. This feminist economics should make economists understand the sexist nature of the traditional theory and thus change both their analysis and policy recommendations, reorienting the measure of success so that women’s welfare issues are put on the same level as those of men (3). This is one of the main challenges of the new millenium, and one where intiatives like the Red Latinoamericana Mujeres Transformando la Economía - REMTE (Latin American Network of Women Transforming the Economy) (4), have a significant role. Notes: 1. The results of the study were published in: El impacto de las políticas económicas globalizadoras en el trabajo y calidad de vida de las mujeres, REMTE, 2001. (The Impact of globalising economic policies on women’s work and quality of life) The book was officially presented during the VIII Meeting 2. Nelson,J. The Masculine Mindset of Economic Analysis. 1996 3. Strober, M. " Can feminist Throught Improve Economics? Rethinking Economic Through A Feminist Lens". Mayo,1994. 4 The REMTE, created in 1997, is an organisation for analysis and action in favour of the recognition of women as economic players, the appropriation of economics by women, the promotion of their rights in this field and the develpoment of alternative economic policies. It seeks to intervene in national and international processes related to the economic empowerment of women, develop technical ability and a political position. Currently it has members in Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico. * María Ulloa is a member of the Round Table, Women and the Economy, Colombia and of the Latin American Network of Women Transforming the Economy.