Low-Wage Work, Migration and Gender Conference
March 13-14, 2009
at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum
University of Illinois at Chicago

In recent years, as the number of women, particularly immigrant women who enter the U.S. labor market increases, the life and working conditions of low-wage workers at the low end of the labor market, has become more challenging.  In order to improve the employment conditions, job quality and the economic prospects of low-wage women, there is a need to understand the evolution of low-wage labor markets, the changing dynamics of low wage work, the conditions in the jobs that low wage women tend to occupy, and the strategies that have been developed to improve their working conditions.

A significant portion of research on the interaction among gender, low-wage work, and migration focuses on the particular location of women in the formal occupational/industrial structure.  New scholarship has added and gone beyond this work by establishing the critical role of low income immigrant women workers in sustaining economic activity and has shown how they navigate through political and economic uncertainties by developing alternative forms of human capital development.  These include supporting labor organizing strategies, taking the leadership in campaigns that support workers in low wage sectors, and engaging in economic development activities that support themselves, their households, and their communities while seeking to improve the quantity and quality of jobs.  A focus on low wage and immigrant women is particularly important at this time as the country faces a deepening labor market and employment crisis, tougher immigration policies, and ongoing local and global economic restructuring processes that seriously challenge the ability of women and families to improve their livelihoods.

In this conference, we seek to compile research from academics and practitioners interested in understanding the conditions of low wage and immigrant women. The work presented in this conference analyzes the particular condition of women in low wage labor markets, the characteristics and processes related to employment in particular jobs, and strategies to improve the human capital and working conditions of women in this sector.