Work in agro-industry and the social reproduction of labour in Mozambique: contradictions in the current accumulation system

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article discusses the tensions between job creation and employment quality in the system of accumulation in Mozambique. Addressing job quality is central because Mozambique’s economic structure has mostly failed to generate stable work and pay and dignified working conditions. However, this is neglected in the mainstream view of labour markets, which is dominated by dualisms and limited by its blind spot regarding social reproduction. The authors follow a political economy approach informed by a social reproduction lens and draw on original primary evidence on agro-industries. They argue that low-quality jobs reflect the current mode of organisation of production, in which companies’ profitability depends on access to cheap and disposable labour and relies on workers’ ability to engage in multiple, interdependent paid and unpaid forms of work to sustain themselves. Unless the co-constitutive interrelations between production and reproduction are understood and addressed, the fragmentation of livelihoods will intensify the social system crisis.