Population policy, economic development, and multinational corporations in Latin America

For many years, social scientists have debated the ideological positions on the population-development equation. What has been absent from these discussions is the role played by multinational corporations—in perpetuating both adverse population processes and economic under-development in Third World countries. This paper first examines the impact of this neglected dimension in understanding the structural crisis of Latin American countries. Second, it examines the impact of multinational corporations on Latin American women and how the globalization of capital undermines some widely accepted propositions concerning the role of women in economic development. Finally, it describes the impact of multinational corporations on internal migration pressures.