How does the trend in the Caribbean towards skilled export manufacturing affect women? Can improved training help women benefit from the shift? What barriers prevent women from making the most of training opportunities?

Research from the University of the West Indies investigates women’s access to advanced skills training. The shift from labour-intensive to skills-intensive export manufacture meant that many women lost their factory jobs. Stereotypes about men’s and women’s work keeps women from receiving the training necessary for re-employment in the new manufacturing sectors. This has serious potential consequences for both development and competitiveness in the Caribbean.

Export manufacturing in the developing world used to be about low skills and cheap labour – but the global picture is changing. In a number of developing countries there is a move away from low-skilled manufacture towards skilled production using advanced technology. This trend is evident in the English-speaking Caribbean, where labour costs are relatively high.

Does this shift have implications for women? Historically, women have been concentrated in low-cost, labour-intensive manufacturing sectors. These detailed, monotonous jobs demand skills that are considered to be ‘natural’ to women. Assembly line production also prevents the development of additional skills, since workers are limited to one stage in the production process. This ‘de-skilling’ means that women are not able to transfer to skilled manufacturing.

Results of the research include:

• Caribbean women face a number of difficulties in accessing on-the-job training. These include women’s concentration in part-time and casual work, and in traditional low-skilled manufacturing.
• Barriers to women’s access to government and private training include lack of affordable child-care and training times that clash with work schedules.
• Notions about men’s and women’s roles also prevent women being trained for capital-intensive manufacturing, which is seen as ‘men’s work’.
• Some displaced female factory workers find opportunities in the service sector. However, they are likely to be in low-income, vulnerable sectors such as domestic work.
• When women are relocated to skilled sectors, such as publishing, they often end up in the least-skilled areas, such as data entry.
• The high number of female-headed households in the Caribbean means that the failure to provide training for women will have a serious effect on human and social development.

Policy-relevant implications of the research include:

• In order for the Caribbean to continue to compete in a competitive global employment market, it is essential that women’s existing skills are augmented by training in order to meet the requirements of new industries.
• A simple relocation of women to the skilled sector is not enough: in order for the desired transferral of skills to take place, the significance of women’s work must be recognised.
• In order to attract women to training institutions, affordable child-care must be facilitated.
• Additional skills training needs to be offered at times that are appropriate to the target group.
• Donors should support NGO efforts to address gender imbalances in training, such as those that facilitate women’s entry into male-dominated fields or provide training.
• Projects that provide training to women will only be successful if they also challenge meanings about women’s work, for example through public information campaigns.

Source(s):
‘More and more technology, women have to go home: changing skill demands in manufacturing and Caribbean women’s access to training’, in ‘Gender, Development and Money’, C. Sweetman (ed), Focus on Gender Series, Oxfam by D. Jayasinghe, 2001 Full document.

Funded by: The Leverhulme Trust, Centre for Gender and Development Studies, University of the West Indies, Regional Co-ordinating Unit, School for Graduate Studies, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill

id21 Research Highlight: 19 December 2002

Further Information:
Daphne Jayasinghe
73 Lockwood House
Kennington
Oval
London SE11 5TB
UK

Contact the contributor: d_jayasinghe@hotmail.com

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