Cuban Development Strategies and Gender Relations

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Notes

1. The term “neoliberalism” refers to the policies promoted by the Washington Consensus since the end of the 1980s, which opened all national frontiers to the free flow of goods and capital while blocking the free flow of labor. On a global level it reduced wages, cut costs, erased environmental restrictions, and cut taxes that subsidized social benefits.

2. This section is based on my paper “Cuban Alternatives to Market Driven Economies: a Gendered Case Study on Womeńs Employment,” presented at the UNDP Colloquium “Assessing and Rebuilding Progress through Womeńs Knowledge” in Rabat, October 2008.

3. Mayra Espina, “Efectos sociales del reajuste económico: igualdad, desigualdad y procesos de complejización en la sociedad cubana,” in Jorge I. Domínguez, Omar Everleny Pérez, and Lorena Barbería (eds), La economía cubana a principios del siglo XXI (Mexico and Cambridge: El Colegio de México and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, 2007), p. 247.

4. In 1978, 5% of working women were university graduates, compared to 3.5% of working men. That same year 23% of working women had a 12th-grade education in comparison with 13% of working men. In 1986 the figures for university graduates were 12% of working women and 7% of working men, while for high school graduates, they were 35% of the women and 27% of the men. Calculations made by the author from Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 1988 (Havana: Comité Estatal de Estadísticas, 1988), Table IV.16, p. 202.

5. Boris Nerey and Nivia Brismart, “Estructura social y estructura salarial en Cuba: encuentros y desencuentros,” Master's thesis, cited in Espina, “Efectos sociales” (note 3), p. 250. Data from the Instituto de Investigaciones y Estudios del Trabajo.

6. The proportion of women in the country's total work force increased steadily from 13% in 1959 to 19% in 1970. Between 1970 and 1989, growth was much steeper, going from 19% to 38.7%. Marta Núñez Sarmiento, Equipo Internacional de investigaciones comparadas sobre la mujer, La mujer cubana y el empleo en la Revolución (Havana: Editora de la Mujer, October 1988).

7. Calculations by the author, based on Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 1988 (note 4), Table IV.16, p. 202.

8. Espina, “Efectos sociales” (note 3), p. 245.

9. D. Elson, S. Chacko, and D. Jain, “Interrogating and Rebuilding Progress through Feminist Knowledge.” Notes prepared for the UNDP project “Assessing and Rebuilding Progress Through Women's Knowledge,” June 2008, p. 6.

10. Omar Everleny Pérez, “La situación actual e la economía cubana y sus retos futuros,” in Jorge I. Domínguez, Omar Everleny Pérez, and Lorena Barbería (eds), La economía cubana a principios del siglo XXI (Mexico and Cambridge: El Colegio de México and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, 2007), p. 71.

11. Ibid., p. 77. Two developments illustrate the impact the crisis had on food consumption. The first is described by Cuban economist Angela Ferriol: “The most evident manifestation of the crisis was the presence of epidemic neuropathy, which had its high point during the first quarter of 1993. … Studies proved that the main cause of this disease was toxic-nutritional, due to a deficient and unbalanced diet.” Second, the proportion of underweight newborns rose to 9%. Starting in 1994, nutritional conditions improved, but deficiencies continued for several years. The havoc caused by these two health problems is still felt and is still being treated. Elena Alvarez and Jorge Mattar, eds, Política social y reformas estructurales: Cuba a principios del siglo XXI. (Mexico: United Nations Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Económicas (INIE) in Havana, 2004), p. 138f.

12. Pérez, “La situación actual” (note 10), p. 71.

13. José Luis Rodríguez, Minister of Economy and Planning, “Report on 2007 Economic Results, National Assembly of the People's Power,” Granma, December 29, 2007, p. 6.

14. Pedro Monreal, “La globalización y los dilemas de las trayectorias económicas de Cuba”, in Jorge I. Domínguez, Omar Everleny Pérez, and Lorena Barbería (eds), La economía cubana a principios del siglo XXI (Mexico and Cambridge: El Colegio de México and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, 2007), p. 137.

15. Plan de Acción Nacional de Seguimiento a la Conferencia de Beijing de la República de Cuba (Havana: Editorial de la Mujer, 1999), pp. 9–23.

16. Anuario Estadistico de Cuba 1996, p. 116.

17. Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas (hereafter ONE), Perfil estadístico de la mujer cubana en el umbral del siglo XXI, February 1999, p. 144; ONE, Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2006, Table VI.9.

18. ONE, Perfil estadístico (note 17), Chart VI.9.

19. ONE, Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2006 (note 17), Table VI.6.

20. ONE, Perfil estadístico (note 17), Chart VI.9, and Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2006, Chart VI.8 (note 17).

21. Monreal, “La globalización de los dilemmas” (note 14), p. 130.

22. Ibid., p. 131.

23. Alvarez and Mattar, Política social y reformas estructurales (note 11), p. 23.

24. Instituto de Investigaciones y Estudios del Trabajo, “La presencia femenina en el mercado de trabajo, en las diferentes categorías ocupacionales y sectores de la economía, la segregación horizontal y vertical, los salarios e ingresos en general,” Havana, November 2007.

25. Everleny Pérez, “La situación actual” (note 10), p. 79.

26. Espina, “Efectos sociales” (note 3), p. 251f.

27. ONE, Censo de Población y Viviendas de la República de Cuba, 2002.

28. Instituto de Investigaciones del Trabajo, “La presencia femenina” (note 24).

29. Ibid. In the 1990s there were other methods to calculate differences in salaries by gender, but none of them was as precise as the methodology used in this study. In 1996 the authors of “Investigación del desarrollo humano en Cuba” [Research on Human Development in Cuba] pointed out in a note that “the ratio of female to male salaries should equal 1.00 instead of 0.75.”

30. Espina, “Efectos sociales” (note 3), p. 255.

31. Ibid.

32. Prontuario Estadístico Educación Superior, Curso 2007-2008, Havana, January 2008, p. 7; Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2006 (note 17), Table XXII.1.

33. Dirección de Estudios Sociales, Inicio del curso escolar 2007-2008 y Resumen del curso escolar 2006-2007, March 2008, ONE.

34. ONE, Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2006 (note 17), Table VI.7.

35. Prontuario Estadístico Educación Superior (note 32), p. 4.

36. Ibid., p. 27; Dirección de Estudios Sociales, Inicio del curso escolar (note 33).

37. Marta Núñez Sarmiento, “Cuban Strategies for Women's Employment in the 1990s: A Case Study of Professional Women,” Socialism and Democracy, Vol. 15, No. 1, Spring-Summer 2001, pp. 41–64; “Changes in Gender Ideology Among Professional Women and Men in Cuba Today,” Cleveland State Law Review, Vol. 52, Nos. 1/2, 2005, pp. 173–187; “Un modelo ‘desde arriba’ y ‘desde abajo’ : el empleo femenino y la ideología de género en Cuba en los últimos treinta años,” in Nathalie Lebon & Elizabeth Maier, eds, De lo Privado a lo Público. 30 años de lucha ciudadana de las mujeres en América Latina (LASA, UNIFEM, Siglo XXI, 2006), pp. 74–91.

38. Information extracted from the Social Security Law, tabloid, Editora Politica, 2008.

39. Espina, “Efectos sociales” (note 3), p. 273.

40. Ibid.

41. In 1986 and 1987 the Federation of Cuban Women led a study at the textile factory Celia Sánchez Manduley in Santiago de Cuba and collaborated extensively with Helen Safa in the research presented in her book Myth of the Male Breadwinner (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995).