Class and historical analysis for the study of women and economic change.

Analysis of the effects of development policy on womens socioeconomic position requires a comprehensive theoretical and analytical framework based largely on the relationship between the sexual division of labor and the overall process of social change. In this chapter such a comprehensive framework for the study of women in the Third World is proposed. The analysis begins with the proposition that womens position in society is based on the following: 1) human production (in terms of the social relations which regulate the formation of families and the bearing and rearing of children); and 2) production (in terms of the social relations which govern the production of goods and services. The sexual division of labor emerges as an expression of womens roles in both production and reproduction. The position of women in the Third World must also be analyzed in terms of the particular context of national development. Analysis of womens economic position in the Third World requires a comprehensive historical framework from which to view the sexual division of labor class structure and the requirements of capital accumulation. As it is necessary to theorize the relationship between production and reproduction and these relationships have long been of interest to Marxist scholars a review of the contributions of Marx Engels and more recent authors is included. On the basis of the theoretical discussion a research design for a national level study of women and the processes of socioeconomic change in the Third World is outlined. The objective is to analyze the interaction between historical processes of socioeconomic change and changes in the sexual division of labor. Within this overall framework the proposed research project is limited to rural women and to the interrelationship between the process of capitalist development in agriculture and the sexual division of labor within both peasant households and the emerging structure of production. The general propositions that guide the study of women and underdevelopment are summarized and are illustrated with specific research hypotheses drawn from the application of this conceptual framework to the study of Andean women. A research project design is then detailed which draws upon previous experiences in carrying out a national level study on rural women. The objectives and the methodology to be employed in each stage of research are as follows: analysis of the national process of historical development; regional case studies of the process of capitalist development; and the measurement of the sexual division of labor. The qualitative and quantitative data generated through the 3 research stages described provide the basis for analysis of regional case studies of the process of capitalist development in agriculture and the changes in the sexual division of labor.