[Women in labor and migration. The female labor market between 1950 and 1990 and migration of women to Santiago, Chile]. / La mujer en el trabajo y la migracion. El mercado laboral femenino entre 1950 y 1990 y la inmigracion de mujeres a la ciudad de Santiago de Chile.

PIP: Changes in the volume of female migration to Santiago and in the employment patterns of migrant women are analyzed in relationship to changes in the female labor market from 1950 onward, with special emphasis on the years 1970-90. Data sources include published works, the censuses of 1952 to 1982, a 1962 survey on in-migration to Santiago, employment surveys conducted by the University of Chile and the National Institute of Statistics, special tabulations for subsamples of the 1970 and 1982 censuses, and household employment survey information from the fourth quarter of 1993. In 1973 Chile embarked on a process of structural adjustments that affected social expenditures and employment, profoundly modifying urban labor markets. The Chilean economy is currently in a phase of consolidating its productive transformation, with positive results for economic growth and recuperation of employment, but with no reduction of poverty. The explanation of the growth in poverty should be sought in modifications in the conditions of employment of the Chilean population during the productive transformation. Modernization processes such as increased education and access to fertility control contributed to an increase in the number of highly educated women in nonmanual occupations in Santiago, but have not significantly influenced the volume or direction of female migration or modified the disadvantageous occupational profile of migrant women. Gender considerations including cultural norms governing female sexual behavior and nuptiality appear to exercise a decisive influence on the occupational status of migrant women in Santiago. Low status, single women migrating to Santiago have been concentrated in domestic service in part because of their need to find work providing safe living quarters. After 1975, migrant women encountered an increasing proportion of urban women working and looking for work and a structural transformation of domestic service marked by massive absorption of low status nonmigrant women. The disadvantages of migrant women related to their lower age, education, and urban experience have declined or disappeared, but disadvantages related to lack of family and housing in the city have persisted. Continuing high rates of urban poverty in Santiago and substitution of precarious employment for open unemployment have resulted in continuing high rates of female employment. The lack of dynamism in the expansion of female employment, the persistence of gender segmentation of the labor market, continuing tertiarization of female employment, and new trends to precarious employment and increased economic participation of nonmigrant women suggest that occupational patterns of migrant women will not change greatly in the 1990s. Although they have become better educated and prefer to avoid live-in domestic service, their employment options appear limited.^ieng