The Gendered Burden of Development in Nicaragua

Abstract

The recent political “left turn” in Latin America has led to an increased emphasis on social policy and poverty alleviation programs aimed at women. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in a rural village in Nicaragua, I argue that one of the consequences of such programs is an increase in women’s daily workload, which I call the gendered burden of development. By exploiting women’s unpaid community care labor, these non-governmental organizations (NGO) and state-led programs entrench established gender roles and responsibilities. Furthermore, through their selective interventions, these programs reinforce the neoliberal ideal of self-sufficiency in women’s everyday lives, contributing to the formation of a particular kind of developmental subject who assumes responsibility for her own hardships. Although these programs have produced some tangible improvements in women’s lives, they ultimately do little to alter the structural conditions affecting the precariousness of women’s survival.

Working for Inclusion? Conditional Cash Transfers, Rural Women, and the Reproduction of Inequality

“…By conditioning access to the cash transfer on service usage, CCTs organize rural mothers’ time (Neumann ). Women in the Andes spend on average 14–18 hours a day on productive and reproductive labour, do more agricultural work than men, and multi‐task, for instance caring for children while spinning wool and pasturing animals (Deere 2005).…”

Patriarchy, New Left Post-Neoliberalism, and the Valuing of Care Work: The Labor Conditions of Nicaraguan Nurses under Sandinismo’s “Second Stage”

“…The FSLN government's apparent expectation that nurses will simply absorb an expansion of demand on the public hospitals and clinics is in keeping with other ways that it falls back on an essentialist view of gender and care work. This is exemplified in its continuation of targeted poverty reduction programs begun under the neoliberal era that rely on women's voluntary labor (Haase 2012;Martínez Franzoni and Voorend 2011;Neumann 2013). This entrenches what Sylvia Chant calls the "gendered burden of poverty" (Chant 2008) and what Caroline Moser (1993) refers to as women's "triple role" (their responsibility for income generation, household care work, and community development).…”

“…This entrenches what Sylvia Chant calls the "gendered burden of poverty" (Chant 2008) and what Caroline Moser (1993) refers to as women's "triple role" (their responsibility for income generation, household care work, and community development). Poor women perform the necessary labor (with no or only token compensation) to implement NGO programs that the Sandinista government funds for household food security, early childhood development and education, community sanitation, and even data gathering and education in community primary health (Neumann 2013). In the latter, there is a special emphasis on maternal health through increasing in-hospital births.…”

“Un Favorzote”: Gender and Reciprocity in the Andes

“…Women's decisions to align themselves with others who understand the challenges they face to construct more positive home lives may reflect the “maternal volunteerism” that Caroline Moser (), Amy Lind (), Sylvia Chant (), Kate MacLean (), Pamela Neumann (), and others argue is exploited by NGOs and neoliberal governments (Lind :109). Chant () has suggested that instead of discussing the “feminization of poverty” scholars should refer to the “feminization of responsibility”: more than a failure to provide, what ends up being “feminized” in the neoliberal (or postneoliberal) era are the duties that women face, especially when they are heads of households.…”