Maquiladoras Essay

Introduction

In Mexico, Maquiladora is a manufacturing operation, where factories import certain material and equipment on a duty -free and tariff free basis for assembly, processing or Introduction. They are examples of special economic zones as seen in many countries. Maquiladoras are plants which import raw materials, components, machinery, and then re-export, primarily to the United States, paying taxes only on the value added. According to one research on the maquiladoras, “It was found out that by 2006, nearly 50% of Mexico’s total exports came from maquiladoras.” (Cargillo J., Zarate R., 2009.). Capital was allowed in the manufacturing industry. “The maquiladora sector emerged as the official response to unemployment in Mexico's northern

border region and the demise of the Bracero Program in 1964 - a program that had provided work authorization for Mexican farm workers in the United States.” (Cargillo J., Zarate R., 2009).In the program, Mexican agricultural workers were allowed to work legally in U.S on the seasonal bas
Development of Maquiladora program
The collapse of the Bracero program lead to major unemployment along the borer.

Thus, to solve the issue of unemployment, the Mexican government launched the Border Industrialisation program or Maquiladora Program. The Maquiladoras became popular because of offering tremendous jobs that require no or few skills. A large percentage of people who applied the job were the people from rural areas. In addition, there were so many benefits provided in the job such as holidays during Christmas season, bonus pay etc., which made the job more attractive and getting more people to work number of plants and employment around 1994 once NAFTA came into force. “The increase in employment in the maquiladoras has been such that the percentage of manufacturing that they represent within Mexico grew from 7 percent in 1985 to 27 percent in 1996, and reached 35 percent in 2000”. (Cooney P.,

2001).
Working environment in Maquiladora
According to one of the study on the working conditions of Maquiladora, “Maquiladoras violate human labor and health rights of the workers. These include toxic chemicals, unsafe equipment, poor workstation design, harmful noise levels, excessive heat and cold and poor ventilation.’’(Abell H, 1999). The females workers consists of 60% of the total workers in the maquiladoras and the rest 40 % are men. Studies have shown that “there is increase in the rate of health-related illness on both sites of Mexico-US border sites as compared to non-border sites.” (Abell H, 1999). The employees have to struggle with the hazardous working conditions. The health problems include headaches, dizziness, nausea, anxiety, fatigue, anemia, forgetfulness, heart disease, stomach pain, vomiting and high blood pressure, pain in the back and shoulders, vision and hearing loss. Women’s experience discrimination and gender inequality more frequently than men. Also, if the women’s do become pregnant, they are either fired or asked to resign, so that they don’t have to pay women for maternity leave. Also, in advance women are forced to take involuntary pregnancy tests and some managers even go as far as tracking their menstrual cycles. This results in unstable labour in maquiladora as many of the workers were not able to work in the atmosphere where the health of workers was not given any importance. Researchers has shown that working maquiladora women have high rates of menstrual irregularities, birth defects, miscarriages, premature babies, respiratory problem, and infertile. Studies have shown that “pregnant maquiladoras workers are more likely to have babies born prematurely.” (Abell H, 1999).

More female workers as compared to men workers in Maquiladoras
According to the ‘’Journal of Public Health Policy ‘’, hiring more women in maquiladoras affects the family life of the women who works in these plants.

It is being argued that young teenage women tend to work in the factories, away from the fields, and work in the fields very less. Due to this, the older mothers have to do the household work alone. Researchers observed that as the women work more outside as compared to in house, there was less unity in the family as the women stays away from the household activities. A study on the women workers in maquiladoras found that when selecting the women for the job, married women were preferred than those who are not married. The ideology behind this hiring process was that ‘’married women were assumed as more mature, having more experience of household work as compared to single women.’’ (Dominguez E., Icaza R., Quintero C., Lopez S., and Stenman A., 2010). As there are more females in the Maquiladoras, it raises the status of women in

mexico.
Gender Wage gap in Maquiladoras
One of the study on the wage gap in the Mexico workers, it was found that for the women, they are accepted to work outside as much they bring their income in the household, but they were not allowed to get paid more than the men. Therefore, there is increase gap in the wages of both the genders. This is due to the reason that in Mexican culture, women have their reserved salary and must be less than the male’s salary. Even for the similar occupation, males have higher pay than females. “In 1997, the gender gap was 10% which increased to 15% in 2007.” (Charles A., 2011). Another reason for the wage gap is the rate of the development of country. If there is increase in the development of country then there is decrease in wage gap. Also, the skills of both the gender are also considered in calculating the wage gap. For example, if there is a job which requires tremendous amount of strength, then in that case men will be paid more due to the difference in physiology of both the genders