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84 Women in the Economy (MWG-011)
again intensified by three trends: the international division of labor, new management concepts and
the further advancement of mechanization.
The Effect of Globalization on the Work of Women: Transnational groups of affiliated
companies claim to have created approximately 120 million new jobs for women directly through
domestic companies or indirectly through subcontractors because of export strategies. In this sense,
women were the winners of globalization. If one looks at the quality of the jobs, one can say that they
were at best the quantitative winners. Cheap female employment is regarded as the ‘diving board in
the world market’. Orientation towards exports means in the South as well as in the East orientation
towards women. This is true for lighter manufacturing, the service industry sector and also for
agriculture, forestry and fishing: 80% of agricultural and other subsistent work that serves self-
sufficiency directly is being carried out by women in Africa, while men are preferred as workers in
export and market-related areas .Also in Asia and Latin America, the involvement of women’s work in
the direct production of food is high.
It is not only a question of low wages, or the ‘nimble fingers’ or the lack of trade union organization. It
is everything together and even more which makes women’s labor so popular. It is also the fact that
one can reckon with discontinued employment for most women due to time-off for giving birth, taking
care of and raising small children, and caring for parents, in-laws, and other persons. This flexibility
corresponds with the needs of businesses and the desire to stabilize the division of labor in the nuclear
family. The world-wide conceptualization of women as temporary or part-time housewives, as
‘additional earners,’ or as ‘co-earners’ justifies the reduction of educational spending at the cost of
women; it justifies their low wages, their uncertain working conditions, and the continued refusal of
men to look after the house and children in their place. Furthermore, women who are regarded as
additional earners can be laid off with much less problem because of the poor work situation or
production relocation; men are after all the ‘breadwinners’ and carry the economic responsibility of
the family. The immense disadvantage for women, which arises through the label ‘additional earners,’
begins before pregnancy, extends far beyond this, and affects women who were never mothers and
never wanted to be.
In conjunction with the last World Women’s Conference 1995 in Beijing, the ambivalence of including
women in the low-esteemed wage sector was heatedly discussed. On the one hand, the quantitative
gain of employment cannot be ignored and it brings along with it a certain economic independence for
women; on the other hand, it also has a price. The world-wide liberalization of trade takes place at the
expense of financial sources that were originally opened up by women. Handmade goods and products
by domestic industries are no longer competitive in respect to cheap imports. The culture of local
trades and craftsmanship has become lost. Products that are exported on a large scale (i.e. cotton and
yarn from India) become hard to find and are more expensive on local markets because the
production costs for domestic manufacturers have increased enormously. On the other hand, even the
so-called ‘developing countries’ are being flooded with cheap products from abroad (from second-
hand clothing to agricultural products). This means that the subsidized planning and development of
measures to increase income (in part) through the help of developmental aid and the marketing of
domestic products is being strongly hindered.
Nevertheless, the working conditions and the earnings in the export industry are better for the most
part than the occupational alternatives that women face as maids, in the informal sector, as self-
employed workers, as helping members in families, or as prostitutes. Developmental experts report
that women often seize new social areas beyond the nuclear family and beyond patriarchal control and
that they form new kinds of solidarity and a new work culture among themselves.
Admittedly, paid employment under capitalistic-patriarchal conditions is not automatically a vehicle
for more rights or for more economic independence either in the countries of the South or anywhere
else. Moreover, the differences between male and female wages have increased in most export-
oriented countries. Even across Europe, women earn approximately 30% less than men on the average
where they receive pay and income. They even earn less when they have the same working hours and
job positions and are employed in the same sector. In addition, this tendency always starts to emerge
when labor-intensive industries become rationalized and mechanized, and men take over areas
previously held by women. Segmentation according to gender is increasing in Europe just like in
Africa or India; men operate the machines and women sew on the sewing machines; men do the
programming work and women process the data. Women’s jobs are also the first to be eliminated
because of automation. This will also be the case with the enormous wave of modernization that is
coming to the service industry area.
Female developmental experts fear that the quantitative progress for women in the entire employment
spectrum will become lost in the transition to capital-intensive production. The conclusions that were
drawn for industrial nations on the occasion of the World Women’s Conference in Beijing were that
there is certainly no occasion for optimism. Women remain the ‘sediment of the economy.’ Even if