Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-07, Section: A, page: 2542.

Adviser: Wendell Bell.

This study analyzes the impact of Puerto Rico's program for economic development on the demand for female labor in the manufacturing sector (1952-1980). By analyzing the relationship between the organization of industries and the gender division of labor, it established that the employment of women in the manufacturing sector was related to the continuing gender-typing of industries and occupations and to the expansion of female-typed industries. Although the Puerto Rican government pursued a development strategy with an explicit commitment to increase job opportunities for men, the labor needs of many export-oriented manufacturing establishments were met by women. Operation Bootstrap, the island's export-oriented industrialization program, rather than creating a complex manufacturing sector, attracted a narrow range of industries characterized by a specialization in assembling activities, a high proportion of production workers, and a high proportion of women workers. Hence, the Puerto Rican model for economic development, far from marginalizing women from the labor market, incorporated them into the core industries of the island's manufacturing sector.

Although the high demand for women workers by manufacturing establishments was an unintended and unanticipated by-product of Operation Bootstrap, it did not pass unrecognized. Cognizant of the pervasive nature of the gender-typing of industries, policy makers attempted to change the gender composition of the manufacturing labor force by promoting capital intensive industries that were well-known employers of men. The attempts to establish in Puerto Rico a modern petrochemical and chemical sector were part of a development strategy consciously designed to generate more jobs for men.

This study also established that Puerto Rico's Operation Bootstrap pioneered a new tendency in the global economy called the new international division of labor. The island served as testing ground for the process of internationalization of manufacturing activities, a key aspect of the restructuring of the global economy. Puerto Rico proved that developing nations could become profitable sites for modern industries. Many developing nations today are pursuing export-oriented strategies modeled after Operation Bootstrap.

The principal source of data for this study was the Census of Manufacturing Industries, a yearly census conducted regularly since 1952 by the Department of Labor and Human Resources of Puerto Rico. Other sources of data examined include the Census of Population for Puerto Rico (decades 1899 to 1980), government reports and documents, and personal interviews with key policy makers of that period.