Temporal and spatial desynchronization among work and family: Making your salary in seasonal migration of grape harvest temporary workers

Abstract

Mobility and seasonal migrations are part of the labour market that generates agriculture and the export sector of agroindustry. Fruits and specially grapes demand many workers, male and female, during the crops period. This study was made in the Region of Atacama, mainly in the Copiapó Valley. This area is special for the production of grapes for international markets. In this area, salaries and wages are better than in other fruit activities. Also the grapes activities need a lot of labor working in short term periods.  Many people come year by year to the Copiapó Valley for the period of crops. This paper studies the use of the annual working period of temporary workers, to understand migration mobility, the incomes of those who at some time of the year work here, the kind of jobs they undertake and the places where they carry them out. The corpus of this paper are individual and group interviews to temporary workers of different ages, gender , ethnic and national origin, in the Valley of Copiapó. The study wants to understand the consequences of this kind of temporary jobs in the unity and composition of the families. Workers, male and female, transit through many different agricultural activities in different parts of the territory. as well as across borders. Sex, family situation, social conditions (poverty of peasant and indigenous economy, unemployment, low salaries in their places of residence) explain different patterns of  migrations for sex and age.