For What It Can Afford! Domestic Expenses of Female Workers in Mexico City, 1917-1921

Abstract

This article focuses on the household expenses of a seamstress who made clothes at home and a woman who cooked tortillas. It aims to study the living conditions of these workers after the Mexican Revolution, to understand the impact of this armed process on their homes. In order to do so, it considers the conformation of their basic baskets, based on the relationship between their income and the prices products and services such as food, rent, clothing, fuel and cleaning. The paper draws upon surveys on the cost of living prepared by the Labor Department during 1921. It points out that female workers subsisted on limited budgets, which indicates that hardly any of them had enough to live.