Paper short abstract:

Despite Cuba’s Revolutionary past, labor pre-cariety in the neoliberal present forces households to leave the state sector & engage with the previously stigmatized private sector in search of living wages. Generational perspectives of justice condition household coping strategies and work decisions.

Paper long abstract:

Since its 1959 Revolution Cuba has been known for its long

history of political resistance and radical social policy. The collapse of the

Soviet Union left the island untethered and reeling from the effects of the US

embargo. During the economic and social crisis that ensued, the Cuban state

enacted neoliberal reforms with some positive economic effects, but by 2008

the recovery had ended. In April 2011 the Cuban Communist Party approved a

new package of measures, known as “the Adjustment,” which signaled a

radical change in paradigm. Since the 1990s the contradiction between the

state’s political discourse and its limited ability to deliver has alienated large

parts of the population. In the early 2010s the state began to align its promises

to the population with its pragmatic ability to deliver.

New policies aimed to reduce state expenditures. In October 2010 the labor

federation announced that half a million state workers would be laid off in six

months. Low salaries in the state sector, where the majority of Cubans work,

have pushed families to develop survival strategies that combine the labor of

multiple members of a household across multiple economic spaces. I explore

how individuals and households feel about moving into the previously

stigmatized private sector as political discourses shift. What are the

advantages and disadvantages of working for the state or self-employment

and how does generation influence the meaning people give to their insertion

in the labor market?