Labor Market Status, Family Position, And Employment

The greater overall stability of women in terms of work, company, and crew is itself a product of the factors that serve

to segregate women into a separate labor market. Two major constraints operate on women's labor market chances: those imposed by women's status vis-à-vis all over labor market participants, and those imposed by women's family roles. Together these constraints reduce the range of job opportunities for women and, in turn, make women highly accessible as a pool of labor for low paid, low status employment. It is not possible here to discuss sex segregation in employment in great detail.^[8] It is important, however, to show how it is that women come to constitute the primary source of labor for wrap crew production and how those jobs come to be defined as "women's work." The type and duration of employment experienced by women workers is strongly influenced by their disadvantaged status as women, as (frequently) noncitizens, and by their family roles.

Labor Market Status

Many of the women I interviewed in the course of this study were acutely aware of the range of jobs open to them. For example, Juana, a nineteen-year-old wrapper born in Texas, who attended high school in Salinas, described her own employment outlook:

I got two more years of school if I want to get a diploma. Even if I do, what difference would it make? I want to do something like be a hairdresser, you know? But there's no work. So, what have I got but to work out there [in the fields]? Maybe after a while I'll go to work someplace else.

When asked why she did not work in some other job in town, she replied:

You mean like at Penney's or Mervyn's [department stores]? I make better money out here! Anyway, those jobs are no better. All the men have the good jobs.... If you're a woman, nobody wants to hire you. Everybody says that they don't want to train you to do a job because you'll just run off and get married. If you're a woman, that's one strike against you. If you're a woman and Mexican, forget it.

Another wrapper had gone back to work at age thirty-four after ten years of rearing children. She described her reasons for working the fields this way:

When we got married, my husband didn't want me to work. But he lost his job last year and we don't have any money. It hurts him to see me work, but we need it.... If I could work someplace else, I would. But there aren't any jobs anywhere for women unless you got an education. So, I went to work here. I didn't know where to look so I called one of my comadres . She already worked here, so I came out, too.

For other women, the fields represent the only source of employment. A recent immigrant to Salinas told me, "I've always worked in the fields. I don't know anything else." Another wrapper, a forty-year-old woman named Manuela who commutes across the border to work in the Imperial Valley, commented straightforwardly, "Women can thin, weed, and work on the machines. Maybe sometimes there is work in the canneries. Sometimes there is work transplanting. But, mostly women work in the fields."

Even when women seek work outside the fields, they are often steered back there. In an interview with a male counselor at a state employment office in Salinas, I was told:

Most Mexican-American women who come in here are given the names of employers who need field help. We have one woman who all she does is handle those calls. When a Mexican woman comes in, we just send her right over to talk to Dolores. It saves us a lot of time ... especially if they don't speak English.

The barriers to nonfarm employment are real ones for women and, within agriculture, work opportunities are restricted. In a study of women farm workers in California, Barton (1978) shows that even when women workers seek to acquire more skills or higher skilled jobs, they are often met by hostile employers and insufficient training programs.

Compounding the constraints imposed by nonmarket statuses, employment in many heavily agricultural production

areas offers little opportunity for higher earnings or status. Among women in the survey sample, less than 10 percent had held jobs outside agriculture in the preceding five years. In the Salinas, Imperial, and San Luis valleys, where the bulk of lettuce production is located, the only real alternatives to work in the fields are the canneries and packing sheds. These jobs, however, bear remarkable resemblance to wrap harvest employment, that is, work is seasonal, low paid and, for the most part, unskilled. Yet the canneries and the packing sheds have thrived historically on the availability of local supplies of female labor—particularly the wives of farm workers and other local workers.^[9] Thus, the appearance of large numbers of women in the wrap crews represents, in part, an extension of employment practices (and assembly lines) from the canneries to the fields.

Women's Role in the Family

The position of women in the family acts as the other major factor influencing employment tenure and opportunities. Two elements of family organization are important here: the division of labor between husband and wife, and the economic position of the family.

The division of labor in the family is often cited as a major obstacle to the working careers of married women (Brown, 1977; Gubbels, 1977; Jones, 1970). The obligation to perform household labor and childrearing has traditionally fallen to women farm workers, even those who migrate (Barton, 1978). The women interviewed in this study were no exception. Of the sixty women interviewed in the survey, forty-five were married and/or had children. Of that number, over three-fourths had children who needed some sort of daily attention while their mother worked. Nearly all these married women reported that they performed all the major household chores on a regular basis. The remainder said they divided that labor between themselves and older children, in most cases older daughters. All this work is carried out in addition to working

in the fields during the harvest season. As one of the women with whom I worked explained methodically:

Every morning in the summer, I get up at 4 to make my lunch, his lunch, and the children's breakfast. At 5 I take the kids to my mother's house down the street. At 6 I leave for work. Then at 3 in the afternoon he gets home and takes a nap ... he works real hard.... I am usually home by 4. I start dinner and then get the girls [daughters]. After dinner I do the dishes and maybe some cleaning.... If I'm lucky I get to bed around 8 or 8:30.

While many of the women complained about the tremendous amount of daily and weekend work to be done, the dual roles of housewife and wage earner are most often accepted (willingly or unwillingly) as a condition of their employment and the family's well-being.

The subordinate position of women in the family is also reflected in the practice of determining whether or not a wife will work. In almost all instances, women reported having to secure their husband's permission prior to taking a job; 93 percent of the women lettuce workers surveyed said that their husbands held veto power over their employment.

According to data collected in interviews, the extent to which the husband's objections result in actual refusal to let his wife work is strongly affected by the economic position of the family. Beyond the husband's employment, the most important factor affecting family economic position, and therefore the wife's employment, is the residential location of the family itself. Whether the family lives in the United States or in Mexico has considerable influence on the decision about employment, even to the extent that economic necessity may override traditional objections. To wit, married women living in the United States or near the border are much more likely to work (in lettuce or some other industry) than are married women living in the interior of Mexico.

In this regard, two major components of residential location emerge: the relative cost of living in the United States and Mexico and the proximity of the family to work. For many

lettuce workers living in the United States, the added income for a second paycheck is necessary for the family to stay afloat financially. As one woman explained:

With the inflation and all the bills here [in Salinas], I have to work, too. My husband makes good money, but it's just not enough.... Back in Mexico, we could get along with less. Here it's harder.

In this regard farm worker men and women share in the common plight of many working-class families in the United States.

Economic necessity can overcome even the staunchest of opposition from men, particularly among those families committed to living or remaining in the United States. The husband of a wrapper who himself worked in the packing sheds argued:

We have lived here [in the U.S.] for almost five years. I want my kids to get an education and to do better than I have.... If that means my wife has to work, she works. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing all a man should do. You know, taking care of his family? But I let her work because the kids have to have a chance.

For some families, both spouses working is a precondition for settling in the United States. A common explanation among permanent immigrants sounded like the one given by a young woman with two children:

I have two sisters who live nearby in Chualar. They have lived there with their husbands for almost six years. My brother-in-law told my husband that if we wanted to move, we'd have to both work. My husband told me that he would get me a job in the sheds or in the fields. That was the only way we could live here. ... I don't like working on the machines ... but that's what he wants. We can afford to stay only if I work too.

Among residents of Mexico, there is a decided split between those families in which wives do not work and those in which

they do. Mexican men were the most openly opposed to their wives working, on traditional grounds. A common response to questions about wives' employment was a blank stare. Many of these men believed that either women should not work outside the home or that they should do so only under the most extreme circumstances. A smattering of representative comments echoes these conclusions:

A woman cooks, sews, and cares for the children. That is woman's work.

A man is less of a man if he has to make his wife work.

If I get sick, maybe I will have my wife work.... I would rather borrow money first.

Even for the most traditional/chauvinistic men, the lower economic standards and the lesser availability of employment in Mexico acted against wives' working, as well. Several of the migrant ground crew workers explained that their income alone was sufficient to support their families. Using the standard of living in Mexico as the relevant criterion for comparison, one loader explained:

We are not rich, but we have enough to get along. We live better than most of our neighbors. None of them has a car or a TV.... As long as I can make money this way, she should not work.

Another lechugero, from deep in the interior of Mexico, added that his wife's work at home was important economically:

She takes care of our few chickens and goats when I am away. If she worked, who would do that?

The restricted character of employment opportunities in Mexico also reduces the likelihood of a wife working. A typical explanation went like this:

If we lived near the border, maybe she could work in the fields. We live near Hermosillo [over 100 miles from the border] and

there's no work.... She stays with our family and cares for the children while I work.

At the extremes, therefore, the economic conditions of the United States and Mexico have different effects on the employment behavior of married women. The higher cost of living in the United States compels women to seek work, even over the initial objections of their husbands. The specific conditions of that employment must, however, mesh with wives' dual role as wage-earner and housekeeper/babysitter. In contrast, the lower cost of living and lack of alternative employment in Mexico bolster husbands' traditional objections to wives' employment.

To summarize briefly, the type and duration of employment experienced by married farm worker women is strongly influenced by their generally disadvantaged status, by their role in the family, and by the economic position of the family. In almost all instances, women's work careers are organized in such a way as to carry out the traditional duties of wife and mother, in addition to that of wage earner. A wife's wage may represent an integral part of the family budget, particularly in the case of families living in the United States and border areas, but the range of work opportunities and the duration of employment are limited by her subordinate status in the family. Thus, the availability of work in low skill, seasonal production allows women to carry out the dual roles of wife and wage-earner. At the same time, however, the availability of this attractive labor pool facilitates expansion of those jobs.