Intersections between the global economy and gender structures in the workforce in relocated industries

Abstract

This study examines the impact of industrial relocation on gender relations in the Tanger–Tetouan–Al Hoceima region of Morocco. Having detected the importance of diversity among workers in relocated industry, our objective is to show how the global process shapes the local. To this end, we carried out 114 biographical interviews with relocated industry workers in the aforementioned region, which we analysed using grounded theory, identifying the ways in which gender relations are interconnected with global dynamics. The key dimensions that emerged in our analysis as interacting with gender were marital status, occupational status, and the status of being an internal migrant to a major industrial city or a native. This intersectional perspective acquires meaning in a theoretical scheme that shows the global–local interconnection and the importance of social action. We identify two profiles located at opposite poles in terms of privilege and access to resources, as well as a range of cases in between that illustrate the configuration of social and employment realities in the relocated industry: married men with middle to high occupational status, born in Tangier or Tetouan, and single women with low occupational status born in depressed areas of the country.