Globalization, East Asian Development, and Gender: A Historical Overview

7/30/2019 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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

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