Structures of Opportunity and Structures of Constraint
Box 5.1 The Roma of Kragujevac: Where Disadvantages and Strict Norms Overlap and Trap Kragujevac is one of the oldest Roma settlements in Serbia. Small in size, its population is dense with a high unemployment rate. Multigeneration families have at least three children and 95 percent of the inhabitants are poor. Many people have been laid off in the last decade in the economic downturn. Men find it hard to reach employers and get a job. They mainly engage in manual labor and agricultural and seasonal work, collect secondary raw materials, or work for the local garbage disposal company. Some find work through the National Employment Service and personal contacts. Women work to a lesser extent than men: a small number of them clean other people’s houses, work for the municipal gardening company, or pick fruit in season. Most women do not receive fixed salaries. The few girls who finish school actively seek jobs, but have difficulties finding regular work. Kragujevac does not present a very uplifting panorama. “Men and women have a lot of free time because, among other reasons, they cannot find anything to do for pay,” related a young woman of Kragujevac. Even when they find a job, in their free time men tend to socialize with other men, gamble, or drink. The younger men, who have lost their motivation and aspirations, do the same. “Most young men in the community have a lot of free time. There are a lot of idle guys who do nothing; they look for work, but hope not to find it,” explained a young man. Women, as traditional, are in charge of the housework, whether they are working for pay or not. When men don’t work, they sleep late and spend their time with their friends, away from their homes. “He only comes home when he is hungry. He brings no money. How could he bring money when he does nothing? We receive child support, which is not enough, but what can we do when there are no better opportunities? Our families help us a little, as much as they can afford to,” commented one woman. Women notice that men, unlike them, find it harder to accept the loss of work, given the pressure they feel to provide as breadwinners. Even though they would like to have more work and better business opportunities, however, when faced with unemployment, men would rather be idle than do “female tasks” and contribute to the care of the household.
and get similar earnings. Their discussion about local jobs portrayed men as truck drivers, metalworkers, and locksmiths, while women clean and cook, as well as work in construction and agriculture. And while some gender specialization is evident in the jobs the focus groups listed, women are competing for and taking men’s jobs that require strength, despite almost universal preference that women do less arduous work. For example, men clearly saw strength as a factor that should favor men in construction work: “Jobs that imply physical work are harder and men are better at those kinds of jobs, for example, construction. Moreover, men are braver and therefore take more dangerous jobs.” While women see c onstruction as “one of the worst ways of making a living” because “it is very physically taxing” and pays poorly, it is nonetheless viable if it is the only job available. On Norms and Agency • http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-9862-3
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