Interaction between empowerment, economic activity and mother-child bonding

ISSN: 2347-7474

International Journal Advances in Social Science and Humanities Available online at: www.ijassh.com

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Aristizabal LA et. al.| Jan. 2015|Vol.3|Issue 01|46-57 46

Interaction between empowerment, economic activity and mother-child

bonding

Aristizabal LA1*, Gurri FD2, Molina D3, Sanchez G4

El Colegio de la Frontera Sur in Mexico (ECOSUR).

*Corresponding Author: Email: [email protected]

Abstract

A log-linear analysis tested for the association between parental bonding, mother’s economic activity and

empowerment in 152 mother-child pairs from five rural Maya communities in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Three

groups of mothers, further classified as empowered or un-empowered, were compared. These were: women who did

not participate in any income generating activities (TW), those who increased their participation in traditionally

accepted income generating activities for women (WTI) and those who became full time wage earners at a new local

assembly plant, a non-traditional income generating activity (WNTI). Empowerment significantly modified the

association between occupation and parental bonding. There was an interaction effect between the three variables.

Empowerment had a negligible effect on WNTI, it weakened the bonds of TW and it improved those of WTI. Results

support previous observations the idea that in rural areas imported income generating activities create novel

ecological conditions that increase the vulnerability of the women who participate in them and have a negative

effect on their relationship with their children. They also show that an increase in culturally acceptable means of

generating wealth will not in itself improve their well-being. To do so, women must also be empowered.

Keywords: Parental bonds, Empowerment, Economic activity, Maya communities, Globalization, Well-being.

Introduction

In rural areas of developing countries economic

growth has increased women’s market

participation and improved their working

conditions [1, 2]. Today more women have access

to loans [2-5] and wage labor options [6, 7].

Nevertheless, these changes haven´t necessarily

improved mother infant relationships. When their

new resources or activities are culturally

incompatible with their family context, they have

often lead to deteriorations in the mother’s and

children’s well-being [8-19].

Explanations for this inverse relationship

between maternal participation in income

generating activities and child health may be

grouped in two. Some argue that participating in

new nontraditional income generating activities

reduces the time women devote to childcare [20-

22] and generates novel household environmental

conditions that conflict with traditional parental

strategies and concepts [23]. To others, the

“opportunities” generated by development are not

reflected in improvements in child welfare

because they are not neutral. They usually take

advantage of and perpetrate traditional gender

inequalities that worsen the mother´s ability to

make adaptive choices [11, 12, 14, 18]

If the latter is true, female empowerment, in as

much as it increases a woman´s ability to mitigate

gender inequalities [24], should also give mothers

the ability to reduce the negative impact that

participating in income generating activities may

have on child health. This should be the case for

traditional income generating activities as well as

for those promoted by global economic

development. In this paper we tested if

empowerment modified the outcome that a

mothers’ economic activity could have on child

health by using type of Emotional Bond [25]

established between mothers and their children

as a proxy for well-being.

Type of Emotional Bond is a useful indicator of

mother-child interaction quality because it results

from everyday interactions between mother and

child during the first year of life [26], and has life

lasting effects on the adaptability and future well-

being of the child [27-28]. The “optimal bond”

(OB) is established between mother and child

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when the child trusts his/her mother, who in turn

is accessible to the infant when he/she finds

adverse or threatening circumstances [29]. OB is

considered an ideal adaptation [29-32] because

children who establish this type of bond with their

mothers or guardians tend to be affectionate,

empathic, and feel secure around new

surroundings. This bond also encourages a child’s

autonomy and independence [33].

Children with absent or weak bonds (WB) are

usually provided with little care and protection,

and their emotional needs aren’t met. WBs have

been associated with panic disorder with or

without agoraphobia, generalized anxiety

disorders, depressive disorders, personality

disorders, and a dependency that increases the

child’s vulnerability to any type of abuse including

sexual abuse [28,34]. Finally, controlling parents

who are intrusive, have excessive contact with

their children, promote infantile expressions, and

limit a child’s autonomous behaviors; establish a

bond defined as over protection (OP0 [34]. Infants

who establish this type of bonding may present

eating disorders like anorexia, depressive

disorders, panic disorder, and schizophrenia with

frequent relapses [33, 35, 36].

The study was carried out with mother-child pairs

from five rural communities that have been

recently transformed by local and global economic

development in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

Three groups of mothers who were further

classified as empowered or un-empowered were

compared. These were: women who did not

participate in any income generating activities

who served as a control group, those who

increased their participation in traditionally

accepted income generating activities for women

and those who became full time wage earners at a

new local assembly plant known as

“maquiladora”, a non-traditional income

generating activity. No interaction effects were

expected and an improvement in OBs was

expected in empowered women in each group.

Changes in Calkiní and Halachó (Camino

Real)

Until the first half of the twentieth century, the

Maya peasant communities in the municipalities

of Calkiní, and Halachó Campeche, Yucatan

depended on traditional subsistence agriculture.

In their traditional system, men cultivated the

“milpa”, a polyculture that combines beans and

squash with maize, and complemented it with

hunting, gathering and fishing. Women worked

around the house and contributed to family

support with backyard produce which they

consumed or sold, and the making and selling of

handicrafts [37-39]. With globalization, 20% of the

local population abandoned the milpa and began

to produce for the market in mechanized land

[40]. Of the remaining 80% some adopted a mixed

lifestyle that combined traditional agriculture

with wage labor in the services sector and local

maquiladoras, and some abandoned farming

altogether.

Globalization also opened new opportunities for

peasant women. Several government programs

gave them access to credit, and contact with the

cities opened a wider market for their traditional

revenue sources: their handicrafts and backyard

produce. Finally, the expansion of assembly

plants, created a boom in non-traditional

employment for women in the road connecting the

capital cities of Merida and Campeche [41].

Between the years of 1997 and 2003, eight

assembly plants established themselves in the

municipalities of Calkiní, Tepakán, Campeche,

Champotón, Hecelchakán, Bécal and tenabo. By

2011 they had employed 5048 people and at least

53.9% of them were women [42].

The above revealed the need to explore whether

there is a statistically significant relationship

between the type of occupation of Maya women

and the emotional bond they established with

their children. Likewise was intended to

determine whether women empowerment

generated some impact on that relationship.

Methodology

This project was carried out in the communities of

Bacabchén, Becal, Halachó, Tepakán and Calkiní

located in the Road connecting the cities of

Campeche and Merida in the municipalities of

Calkiní Campeche and Halachó Yucatan (Figure

1).

Sample

We interviewed women who complemented the

family income with traditional productive

activities such as handicrafts and selling

backyard products in the local market [43-47].

With, globalization these women had increased

the time spent in income generating activities as

well as their personal income [48] and will be

referred to in the text as women with traditional

money making activities WTI.

We also interviewed women who were employed

in the local assembly plant, the “Calkiní Shirt

Company”. These women were engaged in a non-

traditional income generating activity that did not

exist



Figure 1: Location map of the communities studied

before July 1, 1998 and will be referred to as

women with nontraditional income generating

activities WNTI. Finally, women who, despite the

changes around them, did not modify their

production activities were included. These were

housewives and were considered "traditional

women" TW.

To select the Mother Child pairs we applied the

following criteria: The child had to be at least 12

years old. It is at this age that children have the

cognitive capacity necessary to guarantee that

their answers about their past are precise and

reliable enough. The second one was that the

mother had to be married to or live with the

father of the child. This one had to be a peasant

when the child was born. We chose peasants

because we wanted to study the impact of

development on the households of subsistence

agriculturalists. Live in fathers were a condition

to eliminate biases that presence or absence of a

father could have on type of emotional bond

established between mother and child, and the

presence of a husband or male partner was

insisted upon to avoid biases that being without a

mate could have on a women’s empowerment.

To begin fieldwork, all pertinent permits were

obtained from local municipal, school and

assembly plant authorities. The project and the

protocols had been previously approved by the

Human Subjects equivalent of El Colegio de la

Frontera Sur: the “Comité de Ética”. Children

were approached first in the local high schools at

Calikiní where all potential mother child pairs

were chosen.After that, their mothers were visited

at their own homes, at the local market or at the

assembly plant. Those who met the criteria and

accepted to form part of the project were included

in the sample and an appointment was made to

visit them at their own homes. During the second

visit each of the mothers answered a 25 item

questionnaire developed to measure

empowerment in four action spheres(Table 1): an

economic sphere, 5 Items, community

participation ,5 Items, a family sphere ,7 Items,

and an individual one,8 Items [49-50]. Each

response was classified in a scale between 0 and 3

where 0 was considered less empowered and 3

most empowered. The numbers of each question

were added. Women with total values below the

50th percentile were classified as "not

empowered" and the rest were classified as

"Empowered". It took an average of 35 minutes to

apply this instrument.

The Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) [33] was

applied to adolescents between 12 and 19 years

old living with their parents to evaluate the type

of attachment that children had established with

their mothers. This instrument is based on the

bonding theory John Bowlby [31], which measures



the perception of behavior and attitude of parents

in relation to the subject in its infancy stages and

classifies the bonding into four types: 1. Optimal

bonding OB 2. Absent or weak bonding WB,

3.Constriction bonding CB, and 4. Control without

affection.

The PBI is considered a robust psychometric

instrument used in both in clinical settings and

for research [51] as an objective measure of

parenting styles. This instrument has also been

used in parallel to test the validity of other

instruments such as the EMBU-I [51-53] the

CAMIR [54] and the EPAA [55]. The Spanish

version of the test has been validated in

adolescents from Spain [56] and other Latin

American countries [57].

The PBI consists of 25 statements, with two

scales: One for Care (12 items) and another for

Overprotection (13 items). Each item is scored

with the Likert method in a scale from 0 to 3. The

Care scale can reach a maximum of 36 points and

Overprotection 39. For each item, adolescents

were asked to pick the alternative that best

described the relationship with her mother based

on their memories until age 12. Children with

Constriction bonding and Control without

affection were classified as Overprotection (OP).

To visualize the relationship between the

variables of occupation, bonding and

empowerment, contingency tables were made and

a log-linear analysis was performed to measure

the strength of association between variables [58-

59]. Fisher [60] suggested this method when

frequencies are low. The variables investigated by

log-linear models are treated as "response

variables" so that these do not distinguish

between dependent and independent variables.

The statistical significance of each association

was obtained by calculating the Pearson Chi-

square as well as the goodness of fit test for the

model [61].

Results and Discussion

Table 1 shows the number of mothers and

children interviewed in the towns of Bacabchén,

Becal, Calkiní and Tepakán, Halachó Campeche

and Yucatan. Fieldwork was from January to July

2011. Most of the sample consisted of mother-

child pairs from Calkiní (76). Only four were from

Bacabchén.

One hundred and fifty two mother-child pairs

fitted the selection criteria. Forty-one women

were housewives (TW), twenty-five women in

addition to being housewives had an independent

Table 1: Number of mothers and children visited

per community

Children

Comunity Mothers Male Female Total

Bacabchén 2 2 0 4

Becal 4 2 2 8

Calkiní 38 15 23 76

Tepakán 27 11 16 54

Halachó 5 2 3 10

Total 76 32 44 152

business that allowed them to generate their own

income (WTI) and ten were salaried employees in

the maquiladora "Calkiní Shirt Company" (WNTI)

(Table 2). Housewives who met the criteria were

chosen originally from the information provided

by their children during the interviews in the

local high schools. Most WTI were selected during

interviews with all of the women who worked in

the local market at Calkiní, and the

“maquiladora” employees were chosen after

talking to the head of human resources of the

Calkiní Shirt Company”. The women of all three

occupations were mostly between 40 and 49 years

with children between the ages of 12 and 20.

Thirty nine percent of the housewives lived in

extended families, only 16% of those with their

own business lived in this type of family and none

of the women working in the factory lived in

extended families.

Most TW and WTI had similar socio-demographic

characteristics. Over 90% of them completed

grade school (k1 to k6) but less than 30%

completed junior high (k7 to k9). Almost all their

sons and daughters studied at the secondary

school but while practically every child from WTI

went to secondary school (98%), only 88 % of the

TW children went to secondary school. This is 5%

less than the children of WNTI. Most TW and

WTI mothers and children claimed to be Catholic,

and only a small number of children) expressed

religious beliefs different from their mother’s.

Women working in the assembly plant had

different demographic characteristics. In terms of

marital status, fewer women in this group were

married (50%). It was also noted that a higher

percentage of these women completed high school

(80%) and as many as 30% reported being of a

religion other than Catholic.



Table 2: Sociodemographic characteristics of the study population by mother´s occupation

Mothers interviewed Children interviewed

Variables TW WTI WNTI Total Male Female Total Total N

F % f % f % F % f % F % f % F %

Age (years)

De 12 a 14 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 19 59 26 59 45 59 45 30

De 15 a 17 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 9 28 13 30 22 29 22 14

De 18 a 20 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 4 13 5 11 9 12 9 6

De 30 a 39 17 41 8 32 4 40 29 38 _ _ _ _ _ _ 29 19

De 40 a 49 23 57 13 52 6 60 42 55 _ _ _ _ _ _ 42 28

De 50 a 60 1 2 4 16 0 0 5 7 _ _ _ _ _ _ 5 3

Familytype

Nuclear 25 61 21 84 10 100 56 74 18 56 26 59 56 74 112 74

Extensive 16 39 4 16 0 0 20 26 14 44 18 41 20 26 40 26

Marital Status

Married 27 66 18 72 5 50 50 66 0 0 0 0 0 0 50 33

Free Union 14 34 7 28 5 50 26 34 0 0 0 0 0 0 26 17

Single 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 32 100 44 100 76 100 76 50

Education

Illiterate 3 7 0 0 0 0 3 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 2

Primary 26 64 17 68 1 10 44 58 2 6 0 0 2 3 46 30

Secondary 12 29 7 28 8 80 27 36 28 88 43 98 71 93 98 64

High 0 0 1 4 1 10 2 2 1 3 0 0 1 1 3 2

Degree 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 1 2 2 3 2 1

Religión

Catholic 33 81 20 80 7 70 60 79 28 88 38 86 66 87 126 83

Otherreligions 7 17 3 12 3 30 13 17 1 3 5 11 6 8 19 13

No religion 1 2 2 8 0 0 3 4 3 9 1 2 4 5 7 5

Total 41 100 25 100 10 100 76 100 32 100 44 100 76 100 152 100



Table 3 shows mother-child pairs by mother’s

occupation, empowerment and type of bond

established by the child mother pair. Bonding

types were different between occupations, and

this distribution differed between women who

were empowered and those who were not. The

most common bond established between TW and

their children was OP. This bond was most

common in both empowered (75%), and un-

empowered TW (93%) but was 18% less frequent

in the former. Amongst empowered women WB

increased by as much as 13.6% with respect to the

un-empowered TW, yet OB increased by only

4.6%.

Most un-empowered WTI were also over

protective. Like TW empowerment reduced the

percentage of OP bonds but the change was much

drastic (52% vs 18%) and in the opposite

direction. Most empowered WTI established OB

with their children. The differences are

considerable, as many as 48% more empowered

than an empowered WTI establish OBs yet only

4% more established WB.

Unlike TW and WTI, the most frequent bond

established by WNTI was WB. It was followed by

OP, and not a single WNTI mother established

OBs. Empowerment did not change this

distribution but as with TW and WNTI it reduced

the number of women who established OP bonds

with their children. Empowered WNTI had 4%

more mother child pairs with WB.

Table 3: Table of Frequencies between occupation, type of mother child bond and empowerment

Type of Bond

Un-empowered Empowered

Occupation WB OP OB Total WB OP OB Total

F % f % f % f % F % f % f % F %

TW 1 3.4 27 93 1 3.4 29 71 2 17 9 75 1 8 12 29

WTI 2 14 11 79 1 7 14 56 2 18 3 27 6 55 11 44

WNTI 2 67 1 33 0 0 3 30 5 71 2 29 0 0 7 70

Total 5 11 39 85 2 4 46 61 9 30 14 47 7 23 30 39

Table 4 shows the results of the log linear models

that test the significance of the associations

presented in Table 3. The associations between

occupation and type of bond, and between type of

bond and empowerment are significant. There

isn´t any association between occupation and

empowerment. Empowerment, however,

significantly affects the association between type

of bond and occupation (X2 = 15,634 and α =

0.004793). Finally, type of bond and

empowerment are significantly affected by

mother´s occupation (X2 = 26,002 and α =

0.00374).

All women interviewed believed that their

expectations and obligations towards their

children had changed, and that their husband’s

milpa did not generate enough to satisfy the new

demands.

Table 4: Statistical associations between

occupation, type of mother child bond and

empowerment

Model Df Χ2

Pearson Α

Occupation – type of

bond 4 1.830.743 0.001075

Occupation –

Empowerment 2 159.104 0.451347

Type of bond –

Empowerment 2 793.871 0.018886

Occupation – Type of

bond, Empowerment 8 15.634 0.04793

Type of bond -

Empowerment,

Occupation

10 26.002 0.00374



“It’s no longer the same as it was before when he

(her husband) worked in the milpa and the milpa

could provide food for the entire year” 1

They all agreed that in the past girls were taught

to tend a household and boys to work the fields.

This, they believed, was no longer the case.

Today, mother´s considered formal education as

essential to their children´s future success

regardless of gender. In almost all cases this

success implied the abandonment of agriculture.

In spite of this TW didn’t see the need for or felt

unable to change their activities to supplement

their family income:

…Since I was small ... I was taught to do this:

wash, cook, make tortillas, takes care of the kids,

and I have always done this. I was raised to do

this and I have been doing it for the past 40 years..

.. I don´t know how to do anything else.At my age I

am not going to start doing other things I don´t

know…., besides Raul (husband) doesn´t let me do

anything else. He says that I have to stay here at

home, that this is my place2

The domestic space of WTI is similar to that of

TW. They care for their children, are married,

continue to do their domestic chores and are

identified as Catholic. Their businesses do not

break traditional rules. They work in the local

market and carry out traditional female activities

in an opened mixed environment that does not

exclude local male participation and it is under

local control. Unlike TW, WTI acknowledged

their husband’s inability to cover their children´s

educational expenses and modified their lifestyles

to compensate for it.

My husband never has enough for what is needed.

Lately he is constantly saying that he doesn´t have

anything, that the weather is bad,…… and at the

same time the kids are always asking for one thing

or another from school….and what little we have

is not enough…., that’s why it was up to me to

work more and hard selling vegetables here (in the

market), otherwise, who was going to see for

Antonio’s (her son) schooling?….3

Like WTI, WNTI started working to meet their

economic needs and those of their children. Many

preferred the assembly plant to other economic

endeavors because it represented a steady source

1 Testimony 42 year old woman from Calkiní, Campeche, April 19,

2011. Translated by the authors. 2 Testimony 48 year old TW from Tepakán, Calkiní, Campeche, May

23, 2011. Translated by the authors. 3 Testimony 39 year old WTI from Tepakán, Calkiní, Campeche,

May 30, 2011. Translated by the authors.

of income. Some of them, however, saw in the

factory an opportunity to do something different,

and whether by themselves or with friends they

abandoned the local sphere and became wage

earners in a factory that restricts the entry of

local people, that is outside local control and

imposes its own schedules.

It was hard geting into the maquiladora ... I found

out because I saw that a neighbor went out every

morning so then I asked her what she was doing,

and (she) told me she was working in the

maquiladora. I was tired of being here (home)

every day just watching the kids and sometimes

embroidering hipiles4, so I went to ask, to see if

maybe, and well I stayed there after all.5

The audaciousness of rural women who employ

themselves in areas outside their local cultural

traditions may be derived from and place them in

disadvantageous domestic environments that may

contribute to the high frequency of WB observed

amongst them. Evidence of this vulnerability is

suggested by the fact that a greater number of

women working in the maquiladoras switched

from Catholicism to another religion. According to

Pierre [62] the most disadvantaged are the most

likely to change religion, particularly when the

switch provides them with a new social support

network. Other traits could weaken their

relationship with their children. For example, all

of these women live in nuclear families. It has

been shown, that nuclear families place mothers

at a disadvantage in terms of the type of care they

can provide affecting in turn bonds established

between mother and child [63, 64].

This is exacerbated when the relationship with

her partner is unstable and at least 50% of WNTI

are not married but have “live in” partners,

which, while it gives them greater independence,

it doesn´t provide the stability found in marriage

[42]. Finally, WNTIs have more years of formal

education which probably makes them more

autonomous, gives them greater possibilities of

generating their own income and it is consistent

with the observation that of the three groups

these women were the most empowered [65-

70].Unfortunately, in their case, empowerment

did not improve the bond between them and their

children. According to Gutman [30] as women

generate access to other spaces empowerment can

generate interests or needs that go beyond child

care and household labor, reducing the time they

spend with their children. In this study, however,

4 A yucatec dress embroidered by the woman who wears it. 5 Testimony 32 year old WNTI from Calkiní, Campeche, Jun 10,

2011. Translated by the authors.



empowered WNTI had only a slight and

insignificant greater number of WB than

unempowered WNTI. Thus, while empowerment

may have allowed access to or be the consequence

of salaried labor in a “maquiladora” it hardly had

any effect on bonding. In Calkiní, WBs were the

result of participating in an activity that all the

mothers agreed was too heavy and forced them to

leave their household chores and child care in the

hands of their elder sons and daughters or other

family members who were not part of the

domestic unit.

…I get up to leave every day before six in the

morning and I come back after seven in the

evening and sometimes later ... so I have to leave

the kids alone to fend for themselves, because if I

don’t work who will feed them?. José’s money is

not enough..6

Overprotection is the type of bond established

between TW and overprotecting children may be a

way for TW to gain status within the household.

Among Maya housewives a mother’s presence is

considered essential for the emotional

development of their child [71]. In Yucatan,

mothers with young children or pregnant women

receive special treatment and can expect support

from their adult children, other children in the

household and during the first 40 days post-

partum they will even count with the support of

higher ranking women [72-73]. Child care,

therefore, not only defines the role of traditional

Maya’n women but it can reduce their obligations

in the household and give them status. These

observations were also made by Pacheco in 1947,

[43].

Not all housewives in a traditional Maya

household, however, are of equal status and

unlike lower status mothers; empowered women

do not derive theirs from child care. Within the

household, empowerment will be based on a

woman´s ability to harness the help of co-resident

lower status women. Empowered TW are elder

women who can count with the help of their 10

year old or older daughters and daughters in law

to carry out household chores and help with child

care while they organize and distribute household

resources [73-74]. Empowerment in our sample

weakened the bonds that TW women established

with their children. This could be because

empowered TW must no longer over protect their

children to gain status. An increase in WB with

empowerment may respond to what Gutman [30]

6 Testimony 40 year old WNTI from Halachó, Yucatán, Jun 6, 2011.

Translated by the authors.

argues happens with empowered “modern women”

who gain control of and compete for spaces that

distance them from direct childcare.

Over Protection was also the most common bond

formed by un-empowered WTI, and a few more

WTIs than TWs formed WBs. This was

surprising given the observations of Chablé et al.

[70], Agarwal [68], Deere León [75], Hawkes et al.

[76], Hrdy [77], Reiches et al. [78] who suggested

that income generating activities in traditionally

accepted spaces should improve mother infant

wellbeing. An improvement in type of mother

infant bond was observed only in empowered

WTIs, suggesting that traditional income

generating activities will improve mother infant

bonds only when women are secure enough, and

have the authority to generate their own projects,

control their income, their time and their

surroundings.

It is truly noteworthy that only amongst WTI

women did OB go from being the least common

bonding type in un-empowered women, to being

the most common amongst those empowered

while amongst TW had the opposite effect and

amongst WNTI it had none. The significance of

this interaction effect suggests that the

relationship between type of income generating

activity and empowerment, with regards to infant

well-being, is much more complex than as

presented in the introduction. Both the effects of

empowerment, and those of type of income

generating activity on well-being are dependent

but their interaction is context specific.

To WNTI empowerment allows them to leave

their homes to generate needed income. This

decision, however, reduces their control over

domestic spaces, and weakens their bonds with

their children by diminishing their influence on

their emotional development; thus increasing

their vulnerability as conflict with others rises for

not fulfilling their culturally expected roles [79].

Empowerment amongst TW does not distance

them from the domestic space since it’s their

control of it that empowers them. Nevertheless,

exercising this control distances them from child

care weakening mother infant bonds. Finally,

participating in traditional income generating

activities increased WTI income without

interfering with their roles as mothers and house

wives. Improvements in mother child bonds,

however, did not derive from their capacity to

earn money in a culturally acceptable way, but on

their ability to make their own decisions, control

their own spaces and income.



The log-linear analysis did not find any

significant association between occupation and

empowerement. This contradicts suggestions by

Folbre [65], Sen [66], Beneria and Roldán [67],

Agarwal [68], Lont [69] and Chablé et al. [70].

Our result may be in part a consequence of small

sample size since there is a tendency reversal

between TW and WNTI. If this difference were

significant, however, it would suggest that

empowerment helped traditional women take a

nontraditional occupation, and at least in this

case it would not have contributed to well-being.

Conclusión

Several women who worked in the factory, as well

as some of the children interviewed in the high

schools at Calkiní lived in Tepakán, Bacabchén,

Bécal, and Halachó, so these communities were

added to the study. Originally, we had planned to

represent each of the occupations by an equal

number of mother-child pairs. Unfortunately, it

was impossible to find 41 women with their own

traditional business and an equal number

working in the Calkiní Shirt Co. who met all the

selection criteria.

Although today the number of women with their

own business has grown in response to

globalization and credit programs, we could only

find 25 who had a child and their own business 12

years ago when the parental bond was formed.

The sample of the maquiladora is the smallest for

two reasons: As in most other maquiladoras [80]

most women leave the job after two years. Second,

the Calkiní Shirt Company began operations in

Calkiní only 15 years ago and preferred to hire

single women. Very few women, who worked in

the shirt factory 12 years ago, therefore, had a

one year old child, lived with their husband and

were able to tolerate the maquiladora´s working

conditions for more than two years to be counted

today in that group.

Our results support the idea that in rural areas

imported income generating activities create

novel ecological conditions that increase the

vulnerability of the women who participate in

them and have a negative effect on their

relationship with their children. They also

provide us with a cautionary tale against

assuming universal consequences of female

empowerment on infant child relationships and

children´s well-being. Simply within Calkiní,

empowerment had positive, negative and

negligible effects on parental bonding. Finally,

these results tend to demystify the impact of the

promotion of culturally acceptable income

generating activities on mother infant

relationships and well-being [81-83]. They clearly

show that it is not enough to provide women with

culturally acceptable means of generating wealth,

but that they must also become empowered even

if this implies adopting responsibilities or

positions that go beyond acceptable cultural

mores.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to the Mayan women and their children,

who collaborated in the development of this study

and allowed us to approach an unknown reality.

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