Adjustment from Below: Low-Income Women, Time and the Triple Role in Guayaquil, Ecuador

Resumen

Widespread concern now exists about deteriorating standards of living, and the severe erosion of the 'human resource base' of the economy, in many Third World countries, after a decade of crisis from debt and recession, and the resulting stabilisation and economic structural adjustment policies (SAPs). The fact that the 'social' costs of SAPs have been most heavily carried by the low-income population in both rural and urban areas, has resulted in proposals to modify the adjustment process to include 'a Human Face' (UNICEF, 1987), with policies to 'strengthen the human resource base' (Demery and Addison, 1987).