Female labour and familiy strategies

Abstract

Migrations from the country-side to the city are a major component in the Portuguese contemporary society. In the background of those migratory flows, the author of this article studies the impact of the new material experiences (implied by the establishment in the city) on the strategies of families belonging to the labouring classes that, from the forties on, have come from the rural Portugal to the capital. Such a connection is specially illustrated by female labour - as single women while in the country-side and, later, as married women in the city - at home and outside. To women, work and family have at last shown themselves as accomplice words and experiences. Between their professional career and their family life (in its different phases: childhood, courtship, marriage and motherhood) there is a deep linkage. Besides the familiy is always a labour unit in Lisbon, inspite of the parcelling of the labour force that accompanies its entering the employment market.