ABSTRACT
The increased importance of women's contribution to the household economy in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba has led working women to redefine their domestic role and challenge the myth of the male breadwinner. This myth is built on the assumption that men are the principal economic providers for the household and that women are at best supplementary wage earners. However, economic restructuring has overturned this order through changes in the gender composition of the labor force in all three countries, as well as in other developing and advanced industrial countries, with increases in female labor force participation and declining or stagnating rates for men (Standing 1989). Between the 1950s/1960s and the early 1980s, the male participation rate declined in all Latin American and Caribbean countries, while the female rate went up. Female employment rates rose by 140 percent in this period compared to 60 percent for men (Psacharopoulos and Tzannatos 1992: 38–44).
