Abstract

Female industrial employment grew rapidly in the nineteen seventies, but the sexual
division of labour remained very strong. This raises the possibility of women’s employment
not being disproportionately reduced as a result of the economic crisis in the nineteen
eighties. A study of a large electrical factory in São Paulo revealed that management had
clearly discriminatory criteria for selection of workers to be dismissed, but in the absence of
a change in the sexual division of labour, the reduction of women ‘s share of employment in
the factory was merely short-term and cyclical. However, the labour force was restructured
in other ways during the initial crisis period, in 1981.

JEL Classification: J71; J21; J20.