Invisible labor and unequal futures: Women’s structural constraints in Philippine mining communities

Abstract

This study investigates the gendered consequences of mining-led development in the Caraga region of the Philippines. Drawing on a mixed-methods design across four barangays with varying mining exposure, we analyze how structural constraints—unpaid care labor, limited educational access, employment precarity, and geographic isolation—intersect to restrict women’s socioeconomic mobility. Using Gender Analysis, Intersectionality, and Social Reproduction Theory, we reveal how these layered exclusions sustain economic inequality despite women’s vital, yet invisible, contributions to household and community survival. Findings indicate a need for gender-sensitive governance and inclusive post-extractive planning. This paper advances feminist development and extractive industry scholarship by empirically demonstrating how care work, labor marginalization, and spatial peripherality entrench gendered vulnerability in resource-dependent regions.