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they have good grades in school and educational degrees, or if they have even gained qualifications in
some other way, they remain on the lowest level for the most part. Male society is resistant, and there
are ‘glass ceilings’ open and ‘secret committee proceedings’ to keep women in certain positions and to
keep them away from the influence and high standings of these positions.

Q5. Describe the meaning and process of feminisation of labor force.
Ans. Meaning of Feminisation: World over, more and more women are participating in the labor
force.
The phrase ‘feminisation of labor force’ or ‘feminization of work’ was first used by Guy Standing of the
International Labor Organisation (Standing, 1989). He observed in his paper the fact that around the
world there has been a rise in female labor force participation and a relative if not absolute fall in
men’s employment, as well as a ‘feminization’’ of many jobs traditionally held by men.
Thus, the term ‘feminisation’ is used to describe following processes:
• Increase in the labor force participation by women across the world, i.e. in industrialised
developed countries and also in developing counties.
• Relative fall or stagnation of men’s employment
• Substitution of men by women in certain jobs traditionally held by men.
• Flexiblisation of labor where women are expected to work in informal, part time, contractual
or home-based activities. This refers to a form of employment where workers work not a usual
8 hours a day, 40 hours a week (or a 9 to 5 job) but work on a flexible schedule as needed by
the employer. Employment may then be full-time or part-time, with or without overtime pay,
and work shifts are organized on a 24-hour cycle.
• Feminisation of working condition for both women and men workers. Initially, informal,
flexible and contractual employment was used to be reserved for women whereas men
enjoyed more stable, full-time employment, sometimes with benefits. Over these years more
and more, even male workers are subjected to feminized working conditions.
We will consider an important question in the following sections. ‘Feminisation of Labor force’ is a
positive sign for the struggle for women’s equality or not?
To answer this question, we need to understand the complexity of the women’s work and its
relationship with the process of development in the present context of the world economy.
Feminisation is taking place in the context of Globalization of the world economy. As you know from
the earlier sections, Globalization is characterized by,
• Increase in the International trade as share of National Income and increase in the share of
foreign investment in total investment in most countries.
• Trade and investment have been directed increasingly to economies in which labor costs have
been relatively low.
• A trend to market deregulation rather than statutory regulation of the labor market leading to
erosion of protective and pro-collective labor regulations, decentralization of wage
determination and erosion of employment security.
• A ‘technological revolution,’ based on micro-electronics, which has permitted a wider range of
technological-managerial options in working arrangements.
• Erosion in the legitimacy of the welfare systems of industrialized countries.
• Growing privatization of social protection and an individualization of social security. These
have impact not only on women’s work but for the nature of work for both men and women
workers in the developed and developing countries.
The process of feminization: Feminisation is evident in developed as well as developing countries
but both have distinct processes. Let us examine the process of feminisation in Developed Countries
and Developing Countries.
The Process of Feminisation in Developed Countries: As you know from the earlier unit,
Globalization have lead to ‘new international division of labor’. In this new division of labor the MNCs
from developed countries relocated the labor intensive production processes to the developing
countries i.e. from high wage areas to low wage areas. The units in the developed countries specialized
in more skills and capital-intensive goods and developing countries in the labor intensive goods.
The United States of America was first to undertake the relocation of several labor- intensive firms
making garments, footwear and electronics to Caribbean, East Asia, and Latin America where the
wages were low. Firms from Japan moved labor intensive operations to South-East Asia and
subsequently the process has gained further momentum around the world with other developed
countries also took the same path. This has resulted in reduction of fulltime, permanent
manufacturing jobs in the developed economies.
Two processes lead to the feminisation in the developed countries.