Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic: The Society and Its Environment
women. This figure has changed little in two decades, but it
needs to be qualified because the women heading households
in 1998 tended to be older—middle-aged and up. This change
resulted from large numbers of younger women finding jobs in
the industrial free zones. The change has occurred mainly in
cities where these zones are located, namely, La Romana, San
Francisco de Macoris, Puerto Plata, and Santo Domingo. Even
in woman-headed families with a male breadwinner, a woman
is frequently the more consistent income earner among poorer
city dwellers. Women's economic activities are diverse, even if
poorly remunerated. Women take in washing and ironing and
do domestic work. The more prosperous sew. Some buy cheap
or used items and raffle them off. A few who can muster the
necessary capital run stalls selling groceries, cigarettes, and
candy, but their trade is minimal. In smaller towns, women also
perform a variety of agricultural processing tasks: grinding coffee,
husking garlic, winnowing beans, and washing pig intestines.
Like more well-to-do city families, the poor try wherever possible
to maintain ties with their kin in the countryside. Aid and
assistance flow both ways. Farmers with relatives in the city stay
with them on trips to town and repay this hospitality with produce
from their fields. New rural-urban migrants are assisted
by kin who have already made the transition. The poor are
handicapped in these exchanges because they typically have
fewer kin in a position to help. Nonetheless, the obligation to
help is deeply felt. Women who migrate to cities return to their
families in the countryside as economic conditions and family
needs dictate.
The small urban neighborhood functions as the center of
social life. Most sharing, mutual aid, and cooperative activity
take place within the confines of a narrow circle of neighbors
and kin. Most Dominicans share a belief that neighbors should
assist each other in times of need.
Rural Society
Family and Social Relationships
Most small rural neighborhoods and villages were settled
originally by one or two families. Extensive ties of kinship,
intermarriage, and compadrazgo (coparenthood) developed
among the descendants of the original settlers (see Family and
Kin, this ch.). Most villagers marry their near neighbors. First
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