Rural youth: tensions between rural and domestic work cycles. Comparative case study in Argentina

Abstract

This work investigates the forms that the sexual and generational division of work acquires within what we commonly call family in rural social spaces (Argentina, Mendoza province). The interest is focused on knowing the inter-section between generation and gender within domestic units as well as the various overlaps between home and work. Thus, the new configurations of agricultural capitalism shape other edges in the agricultural peripheries. Over these regions, young people come to fulfill an invisible (but highly demanded) role in the family phases, and there is also a greater number of salaried members by the local agroindustry. The social condition of rural youth expresses great gender inequality, based mainly on gender, but marked and sustained by the generational division of labor.