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activities world-wide, instead of limiting themselves to the protection of domestic markets, still seem
to have the chance to survive today.
Globalization is a new term for an old form of world economic policy. In contrast with the past,
though, newly developed computer systems help to overcome spatial distances considerably.
Approximately 60% of world trade is centrally planned and controlled in terms of prices by the ‘new
colonial masters. This process of an internationalized market economy is called ‘globalization of
capital utilization.’
The gender-specific aspect is the topic of globalization and a challenge for trade union labor policy. In
the globalization process, there are not the women, just as there are not the men. Women, just like
men are not only victims, they are also active participants. In the process of globalization of the world
economy there are also those who profit, those who lose, even victims, and there are clean-up squads
in destroyed environments, as well as active participants who offer resistance. Obviously, globalization
indeed affects women differently than men. Nevertheless, they are not affected as a group but again as
individuals. In industrial countries, there are more women than men who belong to the group of
marginal workers, and more men than women who belong to the group of core workers. Those who no
longer take part at all in the process of seeking work are predominantly women as well. The fact that
poverty is increasing on a world-wide basis shows that there is a connection between hunger on the
one hand and world market production on the other hand. And the fact that women are represented to
a greater extent on the side of the starving – 70% of the poor are women – world-wide, shows their
special affliction. The feminisation of poverty became a standard concept as early as the 1980s.
An analysis of the gender-specific effect of globalization on the world community, the gender aspect, is
therefore just as important as an examination of the economic, ecological and political effects.
The Feminisation of Employment: In the past decade, two distinctive trends have characterized
this development on the global employment market.
First: More and more women ‘are crowding’ into the employment market world-wide and they no
longer want to return to the stove at home, not even in those countries, where there are fully
programmed microwave ovens. 41% of the employed in industrialised countries are women. It is 34%
on a world-wide basis (Wichterich, ibid 1997). This tendency is increasing although women in Central
and Eastern Europe and in Africa south of the Sahara are disappearing from the employment market.
Second: Employment relationships especially for women are becoming more and more flexible and
precarious. Women are therefore only the token winners in the global employment market. If one
examines employment relationships, one finds that a lifelong full-time job with security is the
exception. The rule is a patchwork career with interruptions because of periods of child-upbringing
and taking care of the elderly or sick or unemployment, with exclusion from one’s profession and
more or less successful integration into one’s profession again, occasional employment, minor
employment or unpaid ‘voluntary’ employment.
The United Nations named these two distinct trends ‘The Feminisation of Employment’ on the
occasion of the fourth World Women’s Conference (Wichterich, 1997). This is because employment
structures world-wide are considered ‘female employment patterns.’ They are also increasingly leaving
their marks on men though. Women are simply the pioneers of this new organization of work.
Can We Still Speak of a Job Market?: The global employment market has split into different
segments in the past few decades. In view of the precarious situation of many employment
relationships, one can no longer speak of the employment market: the first employment market with
(relatively) secure employment relationships in terms of wages is becoming more and more restricted
and is followed by a second employment market with payment below the wage scale; this is followed
by a third employment market with jobs that are subsidized by the state, and a fourth employment
market with work requirements for welfare recipients and the long-term unemployed. In respect to
women’s work, this process of splitting-up still needs to be expanded upon: there is a fifth
employment market with illegal work in which one predominantly finds migrant workers. Available
positions are found in the sixth employment market; on a world-wide basis, the market of voluntary
work possibilities in the areas of social services and health care is apparently without pay, and the
seventh employment market involves domestic work and home nursing in a family. The last two
‘employment markets’ are not found in the job market. Nevertheless, there are employment agencies
for the sixth employment market in all large cities, and the seventh employment market is available
through the marriage market.
According to the desires of modern economic policy-makers, all employment markets are supposed to
have a considerable distance from one another and from state assistance (where we live it is welfare)
which is becoming more and more restricted on a world-wide basis. Access to the first employment
market is becoming ever more problematic without a quota system for women. However, independent
job security is to be found almost exclusively there. The precarious situation primarily for women is