GLOBALIZATION AND WOMEN IN THE THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES
Globalization, a system of domination and disempowerment or the reconstructing of
world economy in the interest of capitalist class whatever it means to a person, is
certainly a driving force behind the imposition of severe economic reforms under the
structural adjustment programme in the developing countries. Globalization has widened
the gap between rich and poor, nationally as well as internationally. It has heightened the
gender inequalities, while framing and implementing macro economic policies gender
analysis is hardly taken care of. Economic reforms driven by globalization have seriously
affected the gender relations making them more complex. According to Noleen Heyzer,
the executive director of United Nations Development Fund for Women, globalization
process had acted as a force, which deepened existing inequalities in the distribution of
opportunities and resources.1 Though gender development and women empowerment is
one of the main commitments made at the Copenhagen summit yet no change is visible in
the lives of women of the Third World where globalization has worsened the lives of the
poor.
For women Globalization means to work hard for less income.2 Globalization has
broadened up their role, as consumer they buy products and as producers they work as
laborer. They are also community manager, caretaker and home manager3. It is they who
are responsible for looking after the family. They work hard to be the part of food
production system and economic development process. Discrimination against women
ensures cheap labor and the flexible labor relationship necessary to keep the global
economy running. Their working hours are longer; they have been forced to take an
increasing burden of unpaid work in caring for the sick, obtaining food and ensuring the
survival of the family more generally.9 In order to attract foreign capital, the third world
countries decrease their legal minimum wage, working standards, and work safety, thus a
tighter connection is created between trade liberalization and cheaper labor, which
becomes mostly a women’s labor force. [10] Globalization has” reduced the ability of
women… [in developing nations]…to find paid work that offers security and dignity”.11
Corporations prefer female labor over male labor because women are considered to be
“docile” workers, who are willing to obey production demands at any price. The
significant increase in women’s share of the labor force in developing countries such as
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Philippines has been followed by average salaries
decreases, less favorable labor conditions, and rising insecurity, thus creating conditions
for the increase of poverty. 12
Globalization has benefited the women of the developed world or the upper strata of the
poor world. Technological developments has lessened the work of highly educated and
rich women but has doubled the workload of women of the third world countries and has
left many women redundant because of their outdated skills or declining industries.
Social inequalities have imposed hardships on women who comprise 70% of world’s
poor. Globalization has greatly affected the role of women in the traditional agricultural
society. Women have lost control of land and rights of cultivation. The introduction of
cash crop production has further ousted women in the cash economy. Women rarely hold
land and even if they do their holdings are small and less fertile than their counterpart.13
The registration of land is usually made in the name of male regardless of the women’s
economic contribution to the household.14 In some African countries women have often
bargained with men to increase what they get in exchange for the labor they expend on
family field.15 Deep rooted patriarchal systems has led to marginalization of women in
all aspects of development reducing them to a position of dependency, which was not to
be seen in the traditional subsistence society. Globalization has changed the intra
household responsibilities for males and females, where females are given more
responsibility over the survival of the family. Males are no longer the providers- yet they
have more opportunities for financial and social advancement in society The “number of
women –headed Households relying on insufficient and unstable remittances is reported
to have grown”.16 Also, “women have the smallest shops, are the least able to compete [in
the informal-sector] and are subject to more government inspections than men”17
Besides land and labor, marketing, agricultural training, debt servicing, credit
technology are the other areas where women are sidetracked. Banks often refuse to give
loans to women without male approval that are usually reluctant to support. Even in the
matters of resources and technical assistance, men are preferred. Few women farmers
market enough of their own produce to benefit from higher production prices.18 Heavy
rate of debt services and conditions of loan are also unequal, showing bias against
women. Women are denied the right to participate in framing the economic policies and
to identify the economic models that suits them. Free import of wheat and rice has
affected sale of Farmers leading to decline in their economic status. It has more affected
women who live on residue and do not have access to other resources available as to their
counterpart. The discrimination against rural women has led to a steady displacement of
women in the traditional sector. Due to development, projects like dam construction,
mining activities, aqua cultural projects, tourism development etc. forces women to drift
to towns and cities in search of wage labor. In Asia, where there are large population
migrations, the ratio of women to men among Philippines migrants is 12:1, and among
Indonesians it is 3:1. Within a migrant population, women thus become the most
vulnerable part of a section which is already a marginalized and for whom almost all
mechanisms of human rights protection are unavailable. In the factories they are exposed
to hazardous and stressful working conditions and sexual harassment in the industrial
sector they are prevented from joining unions. Women workers are discouraged from
spending time with each other, even during breaks. Young single women are preferred by
employers as they do not have to pay maternity benefits. Pregnancy tests are imposed on
women to be sure that the companies do not have to pay maternity leave. They are more
vulnerable and are available for long hours of overtime work. In other words, jobs of a
permanent character are being given out on contract or workers are being hired on a daily
or casual basis.The film, The Hidden Face of Globalization (2003) also shows how
female factory workers in free trade zones are mistreated, constantly abused physically
and verbally in order to keep up the quota deadline, According to FAO report ( 1996) ,out
of 790 million people who do not have enough to eat it is mostly children below the age
of five years especially girls or pregnant or nursing mothers or poor families with a
female head. The woman especially young girls face the danger of being molested and
raped. In deed, a climate of fear and uncontrived forms of violence are established by the
large companies and land owning elites.19
Women are largely employed in industrial sector which has no protection under
Globalization, their employment are shrinking and income coming down especially in
textile business. They enjoy less bargaining power than the men. Shortage of working
women’s hostels, lack of crèche facilities keep women away from jobs in the organized
sector. Women constitute a substantial portion of 300 million laborers in India. 90%of
which are marginalized. Participation rate of women has gone down more in rural India
and the participation rate of skilled unemployed women has increased.
Salaries of Kerala women workers have gone down by 1/3to ½ compared to last 3-5 years
back. (Especially handloom and tea plantation weavers) The “number of women –headed
households relying on insufficient and unstable remittances is reported to have grown.”20.
Also, “women have the smallest shops, are the least able to compete [in the informalsector] and are subject to more government inspections than men”.21
Rapid economic restructuring, economic insecurity, changes to social safety nets and
distinct patterns of migration has adversely affected the health of the most vulnerable
section and the most marginalized segment. Women are more affected by the
privatization of the social security system. As women need specialized services related to
reproductive system, they are more dependent on health system. Adverse health
outcomes, depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress, gender based violence, dangerous
religious norms, heavy workloads, high birth rates, socio cultural factors, all compel them
to take less diet, leave aside the balanced diet. The spread of HIV is also the result of
increased globalization and impoverishment of women. It is the women in Africa who
suffer more from HIV infection 59% of all cases in Africa are women.22 It is their lower
income and social status, which make them more vulnerable to it, either because they
lack bargaining power in sexual relationship or in marriage market. The economic burden
of HIV/ AIDS is also borne by women. It affects their role in production of food and
social capital. Even if they are not infected themselves, they have to spend time and
resources in caring the HIV patient, which lower their productivity. It increases their
workload and financial responsibility significantly.23 Globalization has opened up the
economy in many sectors but it has affected the socio-economic wellbeing of women
workers. According to Tamil Nadu Voluntary Health Association leading causes of death
among women in the reproductive age in the state was due to T.B. of lungs which was an
impact of Globalization.
Globalization is also related to growing exploitation of women in the form of trafficking
of women for prostitution, especially in the countries characterized by accelerated
transformation in order to adopt a market economic model. 24Buying and selling of
women is becoming global, transnational and highly income generating business today. It
is a complex issue intermixed with sex tourism, labor migration, forced marriages and
bonded labor. Free market economy has encouraged organized transnational enterprises
including those for sex and pornography. They work in massage parlor, brothels
endangering their health. Super profits are raked at the expense of women who are
abused physically and sexually. With education becoming expensive, male child
education is given preference. When girls drop out of school because of pregnancy25 or
not being able to pay the fee, they may end up in an unsteady relationship or even
become a prostitute.
Multinational companies, an outcome of globalization, have affected the health of
women with their marketing of dangerous contraceptive. Globalization introduces multidimensional trends in cultural practices across the world, which sometimes contradicts
with existing traditional one. Therefore, clash of culture remains as the common scenario
in the third world countries. They have also introduced new food and new tastes at the
expense of wholesome traditional nutrition. Multinationals are deciding the menus. They
are providing novelty food and genetically modified crops .Impoverished families have
been persuaded by their sales tactics to spend their hard-earned money on junk food they
do not need. MacDonald’s and KFC’s take some consumer away from kitchen, the home
and the food crops, which women grow and derive income from, and thereby taking food
vending away from women proving disadvantageous to them. The importation of cheap
clothes from Europe has forced many women out of their businesses. In Kenya, the
women in the making of ‘kiondos’ (sisal bags) were negatively affected when these bags
came from Japan in bulk and were sold in East Africa and the neighboring states at much
cheaper prices. In 1998 more than 2000 workers in textile and leather industry lost their
jobs and were mostly women. It was all negative impact of policies pursued under the
umbrella of globalization. It is the women who are most affected.
Women remain very much in the minority among the Internet users and still face huge
imbalances in the ownership, control and regulation of new information technologies.26
Computers are not effectively empowering women because most of them live too far
from the cyber cafe; their level of education is too low to inspire confidence in trying
complex computer. And above all, husbands do not support and as such female education
is discouraged in society. Their working hours are longer. Triple workload of paid work,
housework and child care i.e. Reproducer, producer and community manager, makes it
difficult for them to learn computers.
Globalization has influenced the quantity and quality of work for women. On the one
hand it has increased the number of jobs available on the other hand it has also changed
the nature of job. Multinationals have created the export processing zones where women
provide up to 80% of the labor force. It has raised the education standard of women by
changing the social attitude concerning the status of women in society. It has increased
the life expectancy, reduced infant mortality, made contraception more available. It has
undermined the traditional belief that women’s education is not important. Since women
are more adaptable to demands of flexible labor market hence preferred. Gender bias in
professional carrier has been reduced. Women’s educational prospects have improved.
They have greater say in decision making. It has assisted women representation in
national assemblies. On the one hand the global economy has provided opportunities for
women to participate in labor force on the other hand it has increased domestic workload.
The opportunities created by globalization has opened way to development but gains
have not been equally distributed hence women have been marginalized. Insecure low
paid jobs, more competitions, sexual violence, a new culture of extravagant
consumerism, growing social inequality and a quest for new identity; greater social
problems have further increased their burden. Dominant policies that shape globalization
have been barely successful in stimulating economic development and decreasing
inflation in many rich countries, while, on the other hand, they have contributed to
growing income polarization, social exclusion, and growth in unemployment rates. They
have been subjected to external social pressure in the absence of social services and
safety nets. There is a growing trend of transferring women from the formal to the
informal economy. The unpaid labor increases during the time of economic crisis, which
further aggravates their emotional and psychological stress. The challenge brought by
globalization namely trade imbalances, capital in flight, lack of information and
technology had meant that women had to work hard for less income. Discriminatory
cultural and traditional practices have also negatively impacted on development policies.
The poverty condition induced by the severe SAP approach means both less care of the
environment by cash strapped governments and more encroachments on nature by
persons desperately struggling for survival. This has affected women more than men.
Women are supposed to be profiting from global market integration which offers new
chances, more jobs as they are considered to be cheap, docile and flexible, more suitable
than men for new labor market, more investments and consumption opportunities. But
nothing comes for free. It’s a package. On the one hand you are integrated in the
economy on the other you are remarginalized. If Globalization is giving you the built in
material it is taking away your natural resources, canned drinks are drinking your seas,
eating your land and forest, job opportunities at the cost of social security, search for new
cultural identity. Globalization has become synonym for joblessness, unemployment and
growing inequality.27 If Globalization has brought prosperity with inequality and
exclusion and growth with uncertainty it has not brought justice as its implicit claim.
Though the U.N. Decade recognized the importance of female labor in developing
nations yet
the fact remains that economic policies fail to address the needs of females. Global
feminism should be established to reduce the inequality facing women in these nations
and to improve the advancement of women in society. Unless the benefits of social and
economic development are extended to all countries, a growing number of people in all
countries and even entire regions will remain marginalized from the global economy.
Women are losers in new polarization.
There is a need to establish gender equality in all policies at all levels. There is a need for
more active participation of women in decision-making. Participation in national politics
is increasing yet their low percentage in decision-making position hampers their
effectiveness in initiating changes for women.28There is no doubt that this Globalization
is not without marginalization. It has marginalized women. Benefits of it are gender
neutral. There is a need to find alternatives to SAP. There is a need to move from
neoliberal model of economy based on profit and market fundamentalism to human rights
based development There is a need to translate women oriented plans into action
programs and fight for alternatives by criticizing the power structures, providing
education, health and other social services and fight WTO policies that are responsible
for vulnerable position of women. After all the Bret ten Wood Institution- the World
Bank, the IMF and GATT – are all agencies of UN. They should be made accountable for
women’s economic rights. Unless women fight for them marginalization of women
cannot be stopped and Globalization cannot be transformed into pro women process. The
reduction of gender inequality is not only a goal in its own right, but also a significant
contribution towards sustainable development.29
References
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La Press Release – WOM/ 1179 third meeting 29th February 2000
2. Commission on Status of Women, La Press Release – WOM/ 1179 third meeting 29th
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their causes and effects (UN doc. E/CN.4/2000/68).
25
Anne Marie Goetz “Women in Politics & Gender Equity in Policy: South Africa
and Uganda” Review of African Political Economy (UK 1998) No. 76 p 253-54
26.
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27.
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p.6
28.
Africa Recovery, New York No. 11 April 1998 p.13
29.
Fourth World Conference on Women Platform for Action 1995.
.