The Mental Health Effects of Maquiladora Work on Mexican Women :: Essays Papers

The Mental Health Effects of Maquiladora Work on Mexican Women Sources of Stress and its ConsequencesThe U.S.-Mexican casting es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first-year and bleeds. . .-- Gloria Anzaldua IntroductionSubmerged in the impoverished urban march shade which they helped create, the maquiladoras draw young women north from all over Mexicos interior. The women immigrate with hopes of acquiring jobs in the booming foreign-owned factories and be plunged into a new border country that is far from a promised land. Maquiladoras are a financial enterprise for foreign industrialists who hope that by situating factories in Third World countries they pull up stakes substantially cut production costs. The industrialists have been accused of taking benefit of Mexicos cheaply accessible labor force and less suppressive wellness and safety codes in order to achieve these lower production costs. While preliminary surveys on the effects of maquila dora work on womens physical health show little to no adverse typeface effects, researchers and advocates are not completely convinced that long term health effects will prove positive. The emotional and psychological stresses of working in a maquiladora are tremendous and should be examined just as soberly as the physical effects. The female workers live a life of insecurity, instability, oppression, submission, and exhaustion. They face jolting lifestyle changes and even when working full time, have untune making enough money to cover basic living costs. They are pawns in a First World economic strategy that hopes to squash as much cheap labor out of the women as it can, salaried female workers in Mexicos northern states an average of only quaternity dollars a day for workdays that typically run from 730 a.m. to 530 p.m.. High levels of stress accountable to both working in the maquiladora itself and the to lifestyle it promotes attribute to depression, substance abuse and e ven physically manifested ailments. This account will examine the different sources of stress that affect the psychic health of female maquiladora workers in an attempt to understand the overall health issues of the border culture. Overview of Potential Stressors Affecting Mental HealthA great bulk of maquiladora employees are young women who have migrated to the border area from supporting sylvan regions (Cravey, 6). Migration, itself, is a complicated process which could have profound affects on the mental health of maquiladora workers. Migration has been found to have negative effects