A Fair Shift? The Gendered Dilemma of Work-Family Balance among Fairtrade Women Workers

• In Event: 155 - Regular Session. Women's Work in a Globalizing World

Abstract

Scholars have long debated whether women workers in the Third World primarily experience exploitation or empowerment in the context of global production. Fair trade presents one strategy to alleviate the exploitative tendencies of global capitalist production for women workers in the Third World. This study uses ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews with 42 women workers to examine women’s perspectives about working conditions at Nevado Roses, a Fairtrade certified rose farm in Ecuador. Despite the benefits of Fairtrade, I argue that low pay, long hours and inadequate childcare limit women’s empowerment in this context and create a gendered dilemma where meeting the financial needs of the family directly conflicts with expectations about motherhood and, at a more basic level, child supervision. These findings demonstrate that Fairtrade, like other development initiatives, fails to center or effectively mainstream women in production structures and policy design.

Author

• Corrie Ellis, University of California-Santa Barbara