Does paid work enhance women's access to welfare? Evidence from selected industrializing countries - Shahra Razavi

Citizenship has become increasingly associated - both symbolically and programmatically - with a person's capacity to perform paid work. For feminists this raises a key question: can women's participation in paid work become the basis for their inclusion in welfare settlements? The question is examined here by exploring the extent to which women's absorption into export-oriented manufacturing industries has created the conditions for their social citizenship in three industrializing countries (South Korea, China and Mexico). The social rights considered are limited to pensions and health care.
From: Social Politics, Spring 2007 (pp. 58-92)