| Abstract: | In a restructuring world economy, Costa Rica has been substantially more successful than other Central American countries in changing the composition of its exports and regaining prosperity. Given debates about the socioeconomic impact of the country's structural adjustment policies, this article explores changes in the gender and age dimensions of Costa Rica's labour market in the period 1979-91. On balance, what occurred in Costa Rica was a modest degree of increased and reorganized labour-market inequality by gender and age, as well as by social class. Key comparative Central American questions concern national variation in the magnitude of labour-market change during this period and its cyclical or secular components, as well as their interplay with the sectoral, spatial and social dimensions of such change. |
