Beyond domesticity: A gendered analysis of immigrant labour in the informal sector

Abstract

Gender is a constitutive feature of economic and social relations, and in this paper we examine how gender is intimately bound up with the rise of informal sector occupations among new immigrants. We focus on three informal sector jobs that are widely accepted as Latino immigrant jobs in Los Angeles, California: paid domestic work; suburban garden maintenance; and street vending. Gendered analysis is commonly employed in studies of migrant women working in paid domestic work, long regarded as a paradigmatic "natural" job for women. Gender, however, is not only confined to the domestic sphere nor exclusively attached to women, but rather it is a system that affects all people, and different sectors of society. We argue that the next stage of gender and migration research will require extending gendered analysis to new arenas, including men and youths in the public sphere, and we offer an analysis of the continuities and discontinuities of gender in these diverse contexts.