Uses Marxist/feminist concepts to explain employment patterns among female workers in multinational maquiladoras (assembly plants) in northern Mexico. Concludes that maquiladoras have not alleviated regional unemployment for either sex, but have created a docile low-wage work force that includes a pool of surplus labor. Contains 48 references. (SV)

Chapter 7 of "The Economics of Gender in Mexico" discusses how Mexico's "ejido" system, a semicollective form of land tenure, has been undergoing a process of privatization in which parcels are being converted into privately held land. Simultaneously, small-scale producers have been hurt by the lifting of price and credit…

The study presented in Chapter 6 of "The Economics of Gender in Mexico," examined male-female differences in employment and the incidence of self-employment in rural Mexico. Data were gathered from a survey of 5,189 working-age individuals in rural areas of Guanajuato, Puebla, and Veracruz. Findings indicate that education, age, and…