Globalization, East Asian Development, and Gender: A Historical Overview
Transcript of Globalization, East Asian Development, and Gender: A Historical Overview
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Lecture Note 8
Globalization, East Asian
Development, and Gender:
A Historical Overview
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Main issues
A. Globalization (What is it?)
B. Globalization and East Asian Development: the
making of nine HPAEs (High-Performing AsianEconomies) from 1965 and 1990: Japan, the fourAsian dragons/tigers (S. Korea, Hong Kong,Taiwan, and Spore), China, Malaysia, Thailand, andIndonesia.
C. Examine the development processes in East Asiafrom gender perspectiveGender [as a verb] East
Asian Development
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The Asia-Pacific Region
http://rds.yahoo.com/S=96062883/K=the+Asian-Pacific+region/v=2/l=IVI/*-http://apwinc.sookmyung.ac.kr/ehome2/apinfo/images/map.gif -
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Globalization: concept
Globalization refers to the compression of the world in spatialand temporal terms, describing the ever-changing and
intensifying networks of cross-border consciousness, humaninteraction, system interdependence, and transformation on aworld scale.
Under globalization, global economy is an increasinglyinterdependent system of production, distribution, exchangeand consumption. In the global economy, flows of capital, labor,
raw materials, goods, technology, information, markets, trade,and finance are processed
Here we focus on socio-economic aspects of globalization asthey relate to gender.
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Globalization and Development in the
Asia-Pacific Region (1)
Four major waves of development in the region since the end ofW. W. II. (Michael Hsiao): The first two waves are aboutindustrialization; the third and fourth waves are about economic
restructuring. The first wave: Industrialization in Japan from the mid-1950s.
Japan became a fully developed country by 1973
The second wave: industrialization in South Korea, Taiwan,Hong Kong and Singapore from the 1950s. In the mid-1960s,Taiwan was the first country to succeed in establishing export
processing zones (EPZs), where a significant number of young,single women workers were employed. By the mid-1980s, thefour states created the economic miracle and emerged asNIES (newly industrialized economies)
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Globalization and Development in the
Asia-Pacific Region (2)
Economic restructuring in global economy: The emergence of theglobal assembly line--research and management are controlled by
the developed countries [such as the U. S. and other westerncountries] while assembly line work is relegated to developingcountries [such as China and Southeast Asian countries from the1980s]
The third wave: The rising economic growth of China and SoutheastAsia and the emergence of various regional growth triangles andregional integration from the 1980s
The fourth wave: A massive outflow of capital from Japan and thefour Asian dragons to China and Southeast Asia. Low productioncosts, abundant cheap labor, and vast markets in China and theSoutheast Asian countries attracted foreign manufactures to set upfactories for offshore production
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Three dimensions of globalization in
the nine HPAEs
1. Industrialization (beginning from the mid-1950s in Japan and thefour Asian dragons): a complex process involving the transformation
from an agricultural society to an industrial one by expanding capitaland the labor market, applying innovations in energy andtechnology, mechanizing production, and augmenting industrialorganization with trade and social infrastructures
2. Economic Restructuring: a regional and local response toglobalization and sparked another waves in the unprecedentedtransformation of the Asia-Pacific region (the rising economic growthin China and Southeast Asia)
3. Migration: flows of people from rural to urban areas, from oneregion to the next, and across national borders. Recent trend ofmigration is driven by macro forces and not confined by nationalterritory, sovereignty, or identity.
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Locations of Export Processing Zones
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Gender and Industrialization in post-
war East Asia (1)
The impact of industrialization on women in Asia (SusanHorton):
1) womens participation in the labor force of urban marketeconomies had increased;
2) employment patterns had shifted by industry (fromagriculture to manufacturing, commerce, and services), byoccupation (e. g., clerical work and some professions), andfrom unpaid family work to paid employment;
3) the earnings gap of women relative to men had narrowed aswomens education and labor experience increased
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Gender and Industrialization in post-
war East Asia (2)
Why did the four Asian dragons develop export-ledindustrialization? Cheap labor
Who contributed to the cheap labor force? Significant amount offemale workers Gender is implicated in globalization when consumption by the
developed world is built on the cheap labor and exploitation ofworkers, particularly through the subordination of women, indeveloping countries striving to industrialize. As the four Asiandragons transitioned from agrarian, subsistence-based, and low-income countries to industrializing, wage-generating, and high-middle-income countries, their process of export-ledindustrialization was female-led (Chow, p. 13).
Globalization means that waves of women (as well as men)workers have migrated from villages to the slums of globalcities and across national borders to work.
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Gender and Economic Restructuring
China and Southeast Asia repeated the similar process ofindustrialization that had been experienced by the four Asiandragons in previous decades:
1) export-oriented industrialization as a hallmark ofdevelopment;
2) growth in the manufacturing and service sectors asdevelopment strategies;
3) feminization of the labor force (significant amount of womenworkers in labor force);
4) economic reforms (e. g, decline of state-owned enterprises inChina);
5) privatizing industries and liberalization by trade.
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How industrialization and economic
restructuring affect Asian women?
Exploitation thesis vs. Liberalization thesis
Major arguments of exploitation thesis:
1. Industrialization marginalizes women as exploited laborers,particularly those employed by transnational corporations(TNCs) in export processing zones
2. TNCs chose to set up factories in these areas and recruitsignificant number of women workers because they see womenas secondary wage earners who work for pin money and canbe paid less than men and as disposable laborers who can berecruited or laid off depending upon the demands of the labormarket. Their presupposed natural womanly qualities of nimblefingers, docility, and a lack of skills are used to justify low payand poor working conditions
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How industrialization and economic
restructuring affect Asian women?
Major arguments of liberalization thesis
1. the integration of women into the labor market will liberate
women from patriarchal control and lead them to economicindependence. In other words, they are being pulled to newopportunities and pushed out of the home to earn wages tosupport their families.
2. Linda Lim argues that the exploitation thesis is a stereotyperather than a reality, because it is not the norm for women who
are employed in export factories in developing countries. TNCsoften provide higher wages and better employmentopportunities than jobs in locally owned firms or unpaid work inthe home
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How industrialization and economic
restructuring affect Asian women?
Either one of the above perspectives is not completely true. The trickle-down effects of development on gender differ significantly by
country, industry, culture and historical era. The effects are also divided along
class, racial/ethnic, and national lines. But womens contribution to industrialization and economic growth of these
East Asian countries is for sure: women workers do subsidize the waged laborof men throughout society, making it possible for their countries to achievedevelopment at a lower cost.
Many employers view men as the primary breadwinners in the family and thuspay men a family wage, providing higher pay for similar jobs and offering higherwage increments. While womens economic role as breadwinner is deemed
secondary, their work is devalued, as indicated by lower pay and limited fringebenefits. When women enter the labor market, they face the double burden ofpaid production in the labor market and unpaid social reproduction in the family,and in some cases the additional toil of subsistence farming, seasonalemployment, and subcontract of home-production.
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How industrialization and economic
restructuring affect Asian women?
Little research has devoted to the subject on the impact ofeconomic restructuring on women and men workers in East
Asia.
Stephen Chiu and C. K. Lees research shows that among thefour Asian dragons, Hong Kong inflicted the greatest hiddeninjuries to women workers during its industrial restructuring;many of whom were middle-aged, married and unskilled.
In post-reform China (from 1978 onwards), the industrial
restructuring of state-owned enterprises has led to thedevastating effects for women workers (such as the problemsof stepping-down [] or the increasing demand ofproductivity after the introduction of the piece-rate system).
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Gender and Migration
Recent trend of migration (from the mid-1980s) isdifferent from a centuries-old strategy used to adapt
or simply survive. The recent trend is new in itsnature, scale, and complexity that is driven by macroforces and not confined by national territory,sovereignty, or identitynow, migration is taken on atransnational character, the movement of people canbe globally linked in time and space
Also, thanks to the wide use of telecommunicationsand the power of mass media, the globalconsciousness of interdependence among placesand people is developed
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Gender and Migration
Five common trends of recent Asian migration:
1. an increasing feminization of migration
2. a prominence of women as autonomous migration 3. a shift from a traditional family migration to the
migration of individuals
4. a growing flexibility and diversity of Asian womenmigrants
5. an increasing vulnerability of Asian womenmigrants that has heightened public awareness andpolicy concerns
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Gender and Migration
Lin Lean Lim and Nana Oishi: in 1976, only 15% of 146,400Asian migrants were women; in 1990s, about 800,000 womenmigrant workers per year
Internal migration: such as from northern/ northwestern tosouthern China;
Transnational migration:
Major sending countries: the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka,and Thailand
Major receiving countries: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Hong Kong,Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei
Most women migrants are employed as domestic helpers
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Gender and Migration
Why women?
Lim and Oishi point out that the supply of Asian
female labor migrants has been very flexible relative
both to men from their own countries and to female
migrants from other parts of the world.
Their research also finds that, for both married and
single Asian women, particularly young one andthose with college education, would catch up any job
opportunity either it is a skilled or unskilled job
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Gender and Migration
The migration process offers an opportunity for
women, but it might also produce grave
consequences
Women with lower levels of education, fewer skills,
and limited access to information may fall victim to
schemes in the labor recruitment. They might end up
into occupations that are not what they contracted todo, may face underemployment or become
embroiled in human trafficking