EFFECTS OF LABOR PRECARIZATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT ON MEN AND ON GENDER EQUITY

Abstract

The present article presents the results of a multidisciplinary research project undertaken with a gender perspective in Mexico and Argentina. The project studies those changes taking place in gender relations and in the life of the subjects that are due to transformations of the economic structure leading to a growing unemployment. The aim is to relate the profound changes taking place in the economy and within labor relations to the crisis of masculinity, showing some of its effects. The starting point for the research is the precarization of working conditions and unemployment that are typical of today's globalized neoliberal world. Specialists from different fields of the two countries participated in the project. The qualitative methodology of the project included various research techniques, such as deep interviews and life histories. The men that were interviewed came from the middle and upper classes with a high level of education. The research presents certain results and conclusions that contribute to the reflection on the effects of structural transformations on the lives of men, families, and on gender relations, in terms of the problems, pathologies, and profound crisis created, but also on the possible positive changes that might take place.

Keywords

• Gender
• masculinity
• labor precarization
• unemployment
• crisis