Women and Change (Chapter 3)

Mobility is made up of daily routines and complicated and precisely timed arrangements. The journey to work is an important type of daily movement for women in the United States and Mexico. Women who have to travel across the border to go to work or go home affect their daily mobility and time constraints are a major consideration. The main concern for women and mobility is the need to coordinate between work and household responsibilities as well as their children. Some women are fully responsible for their child’s care and some have to work part-time to attend to their children. Child care is often a major time conflict or restraint in everyday working women’s lives. The border location adds complications to families who work on both sides of the border and have to find child care. Surprisingly, after a study was done it was found that the most common motive for crossing the border from either direction was to shop. That was surprising to me because I would think if the people crossed the border to shop in a certain place then it would be on only one side of the border. Shopping however classified as grocery shopping, specialty foods only available on one side, and prescription drugs. Some other reasons people cross the border are to see family and friends and receiving health care from doctors and dentists.
After 9/11 many things have changed at the border. Sometime the wait at the border can be long, now residents or visitors can now check the Internet to see updated times for how long the wait is at the border. Because problems at the border have created much delays in crossing of the border. That has affected many aspects of the border community. Because of increased waiting time there has been a decrease in shopping which has affected businesses. There has been an increase in security at the border which has created a decline in cross-border traffic.