SAU300E

WORK and LIFE

SEMESTER II, 2009/2010

Question 8: Discuss Globalization and its influence

on the world of work. Please give examples.

Prepared by:
CHU CHOY TENG (99365)
NINA RACHELLE T. LANDICHO (BB4339)

Dr. K. Premalatha
 I. INTRODUCTION

It is argued that globalization has been around ever since. Tracing it back to the time

when people from the ancient civilization trade goods using huge ships. Presently,

globalization has risen to a whole new different level where increased interconnectedness is

seen not only in the trade sector but in almost all aspects of life. One aspect that is

highlighted in the paper is globalization’s impact on the world of work, both paid and unpaid.

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 II. GLOBALIZATION

Understanding Globalization

The world today is summarized by an advertisement on a new model of television –

borderless. Likened to the recent innovation, the concept of globalization is referred to as

‘supraterritorial relations’ by Scholte (Grint, 1991). Being ‘supraterritorial’ would ‘entail a

reconfiguration of geography, so that social space is no longer wholly mapped in terms of

territorial spaces’ (Grint, 1991:183). The argument by Scholte was expounded by Held

(Grint, 1991:183) and was further defined as ‘a process which embodies the transformation

in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions – assessed in terms of their

extensity, intensity, velocity and impact – generating transcontinental or interregional flows

and networks of activity, interactions, and the exercise of power’. Giddens (2000) clarifies

the transformation of spatial organization by his thesis that everyone is living in one world.

He asserts that globalization is an all-encompassing phenomenon affecting not only

economics but as well as politics, technology and culture.

Giddens’ assertion is concretized by an employment policy primer released by World

Bank (Jayasuriya, 2008). It has provided a framework for the purpose of measuring

globalization. The framework consists of four indicators namely;

(1) Increase in values and volumes of trade in goods and services among countries.

(2) Development and spread of technologies, especially Information and

Telecommunication Technologies.

(3) International migration between developing and developed countries.

(4) Spread of democracy and democratic institutions in the world along with the role of

international non-governmental organizations.

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 The framework released by World Bank is partly parallel to the factors that propelled

the expansion of globalization. Understanding the indicators for measuring globalization with

the aid of the factors identified by Scholte gives a clear interrelationship of the theoretical

discussion, manifested through Scholte’s identification of the driving forces and the

definition given by Grint (1991) and the quantitative approach to globalization. The driving

forces to the expansion of globalization were identified by Scholte as rationalism, capitalism,

technology, and regulation. Grint (1991:185) simplified the four given forces defining

rationalism as a knowledge that does not recognize boundaries based on nationhood, religion,

ethnicity, and so on; capitalism as the profit-driven manner of organizing economic activity;

technology viewed as the application of scientific knowledge to solve practical problems,

which in the standpoint of sociology of work are the problems concerning ‘the production

and consumption of goods and services’ and regulation as a politico-legal framework

providing rules and procedures governing global relationships.

Furthermore, two related concepts to the process of globalization were mentioned by

Grint (1991:187) to give a clearer view to the subject globalization. He first went on to

define globality through Robertson’s perspective as the ‘extent to which people are conscious

of living in the world as one place’ (Grint, 1991) while defining globalism as a neo-liberal

ideology of world market domination’. In like manner, globality would entail a ‘subjective’

awareness of globalization as illustrated in the recent Haiti earthquake where nations from all

over the world responded by sending in aids like food, temporary housing, and medical

supplies thereby affirming Grint (1991:185) and Gidden’s (2000) thesis on seeing the world

as a single place . Beck’s perspective on globalism that links the political-economic

dimension of the contemporary phase of globalization is supported by a global policy

organization’s general analysis wherein the principles of free trade are categorically placed in

a similar light as the process of globalization (Global Policy Forum). Cross-border trade is

seen as showing political dynamics where an agreement may not benefit a weaker party. This

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interplay of power relations has been earlier analyzed by Wallerstein’s (1974) World System

Theory where a core country is in a more advantaged position rather than the periphery

country.

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 III. IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION TO UNPAID WORK

Unpaid work is undertaken without a monetary reward. Discussing changes in unpaid

work is closely tied to the transformation of women’s condition (Grint, 1991). Grint

(1991:187) has recounted feminist movements that are instrumental to the relative freedom

and recognition of women as a citizen equally capable of being economically active. The

first-wave focused mainly on the fight for women to be treated as equal citizens and the

second wave challenges patriarchism. The second-wave in the 1960s is driven towards

reconstructing a woman’s identity. Castell asserts that the transformation of women’s

consciousness is driven by the informational, global economy (Grint,1991). Globalization is

treated by Castell as a pivotal factor in the dissemination of feminist ideas and the creation of

flexible employment opportunities for women (Grint, 1991).

In conjunction to Castell’s assertion and using the framework in measuring

globalization, the impact of globalization is seen in four dimensions; de-traditionalization of

the nuclear family, women becoming slack-takers, the commodification of care, and the do-

it-yourself phenomenon.

De-traditionalization of the nuclear family

The four factors in measuring globalization contribute to the impact of globalization

to the nuclear family. Beck asserts that the equalization of educational and employment

opportunities have resurrected feminism and Castell affirms it by naming the informational

global economy, ‘featuring all the usual suspects, namely the feminization of work,

feminism, and technological advances in contraception and family planning (author of soc of

work, 195). Crompton, in his male breadwinner/female carer model offers a visual

representation of the changing division of labour between male and female.

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 Gender relations

Traditional----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Less traditional

1900c ------------------------------------------- 1950c ------------------------------------------2000c ------- ?
Male breadwinner/ Dual earner/ Dual earner/ Dual earner/ Dual earner/
Female carer Female part-carer State carer Marketized Dual carer

Gender division of labor

Figure 1: Options beyond the male breadwinner/female carer model by Crompton

Source: Adapted from Grint in the Sociology of Work, 1991.

Philippines is known as one of the largest producers of human export. The number of

domestic helpers has increased over the years. The figures released by Philippines Overseas

Employment Agency (2008) show that women are usually hired as: household service

workers, cleaners, professional nurses, caregivers and caretakers.

The process leaves the husband as the caretaker of the family thereby taking the role

of the female houseworker and the wife taking the role of the male breadwinner. The trend of

the increase in domestic helpers coming from developing countries is in connection with

women from developed countries having careers of their own. What is once unpaid is slowly

becoming paid as more and more women from developing countries go overseas to do

housework with activities as cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping and child-care in exchange

for money.

Using Castell and Beck’s assertion with the guide of Crompton’s model and

Wallerstein’s World System Theory, a model can be drawn showing a domino effect.

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 liberalization Woman
Career -
in outside home Home
developed country (more)

INFORMATIONAL
+ member for
GLOBAL ECONOMY domestic
helpers

Woman Career -
in
liberalization developing country outside home Home
(less)

Figure 2: Interplay of effect to women of informational global economy

While career outside home for women in developed countries entail a paid work in

offices or an opportunity to work outside the country as part of transnational corporation, the

opportunities for women in developing countries are relatively limited. The effect of the

limited opportunity in developing countries and more opportunities in developed countries

will give rise to the possibility of women from developing countries to replace the ‘female

career’ unpaid work of the woman from a developed country. The situation will give rise to

another new situation where what is used to be an unpaid work (e.g. housework) is

increasingly becoming a paid work.

The family is thereby affected as the structure will be different with the introduction

of an addition in the household (for developed countries with domestic helpers) and the

decrease of a family member (for developing countries with a family member working as

domestic helper abroad).

Economic globalization, downsizing and its effect on women

The portrayal in the detraditionalization of a nuclear family is countered by another

perspective in globalization’s effect on unpaid work. Adhering to the tenets of capitalism

with the advantage of a more developed technology, corporations downsize. The downsizing

would entail dependence on acquiring new technology to reduce the number of paid workers.

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The reduction of paid workers would affect usually those with lower employment positions.

A project of United Nations Platform for Action Committee Manitoba (UNPAC)

indicated that the privatization of the public sector where women’s jobs are teaching,

healthcare, and social work (n.d.) significantly decreased women’s job by number. According

to Inglis, between 1986 and 1993, Canada Post down-sized and closed 1300 rural post

offices, laying off 3000 people, 83% of whom were women (UNPAC, n.d..).

Another effect of the privatization of the public sector as pointed out by the project’s

findings is that women ‘take the slack’ the privatization of the public sector leaves behind.

Such is illustrated when women have to take care of patients when they are sent home too

early, have to find ways to teach their children things that they do not learn in school, and

when women cook food for the elderly when the fund for community programs is cut

(UNPAC, n.d.).

The commodification of caring

In consistency with the increased participation of women in the labor force, it has

reduced the supply of unpaid carers at a time when the demand has increased (Grint, 1991).

Millar pointed out the introduction of payment to what was once an unpaid voluntary work

(Grint, 1991). To remedy the growing crisis Grint (1991:197) suggested two main policy

options: more/less commodification and/or more/less collectivization.

As more and more women get out of their homes for paid labor, its effect is the lesser

number of women who stay at home to look out for their children. The situation is illustrated

by the emergence of child care centers in the United States. National Association of Child

Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) released its 2009 figures and it turns out

that 55% of children under age 6 live with parents who are both working. Child care centers

with 18% follow closely after grandparents with 19% on the child care arrangement chosen

by employed mothers.

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 Beck gave another solution by transforming unpaid voluntary work to ‘civil labour’

where in conjunction to Millar’s findings, give payment to those who has done social work in

terms of monetary reward and social recognition.

Do-It-Yourself phenomenon

Paid work now became an unpaid work. We are our own doctors, lawyers, teachers,

psychologists, and publicists.

Such is the effect when the causes the brought globalization to its current state is in its

full capacity. Regulations that encourage imports from other countries make the proliferation

of technology even faster. In the advent of the internet, as more and more people are ‘wired’,

the access to information have become as easy as typing keywords and getting billions of

result in a matter of seconds.

The thesis that paid work is becoming an unpaid work in the world where technology

takes a big part of an individual’s life holds true to some extent. Whereas before people go to

clinics to ask about the cure for ailment, Yahoo! Answers has provided an easier and less

expensive alternative. In a way, those who answer questions on that nature have become

unpaid, lending their knowledge without monetary expectations. Questions about different

concepts in math and science also flood any search engine offering answers by tapping the

‘netizens’ to answer the questions.

Blogging is another platform where bloggers can become dieticians, dermatologists,

fashion advisers, doctors, teachers, mass media personnel and a varied array of profession by

the content of the blog owned. The jobs which command fees corresponding to the service

given have become unpaid as people encode bits of knowledge they have on the box of

algorithms. Some of the blogs that are gaining solid following in the blogosphere based on

topics of concentration are political, personal, business, topical, health, literary, travel,

research, and educational blogs (University of British Columbia, n.d.).

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 Recently, Twitter is seen as the Hollywood stars’ new publicists. It is so since

Twitter’s freer nature of ‘following’ a micro blogger will make the follower aware of the

activity of the followed depending on how the followed would divulge information. Stars

who are popular in blogs are Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, and Demi Moore who typically

uses the blog to tell about their activities. In the official website of 1Malaysia (2010), the

prime minister himself, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak was reported to use Facebook and

Twitter to update his followers on what the government has in store for the people.

Not to be left out is the onset of the varied capability of devices such as recording

video and audio, capturing high-quality pictures make it possible for people to be producers

and actors of their own. Some videos in Youtube comprise homemade recordings of people.

Singers like Colbie Caillat and Charice Pempengco had been discovered via Youtube thereby

solidifying its potent power.

The given poses a question and a future possibility which is, do we work more

because of the introduction of technology? Is information becoming free as more and more

unpaid workers in the internet volunteer information in a wide array of subject areas?

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 IV. IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION TO PAID WORK

According to Abraham Maslow, human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs and

lower needs need to be satisfied before the higher needs can be addressed. To act unselfishly,

general needs like physiology needs, safety needs, social needs and esteem needs need to be

fulfilled. (Maslow) To ensure that all these general needs can be fulfilled, someone need to

work on it. Having a paid work can provide people with monetary support to meet all these

general needs. (Ministry of Social Development)

Globalization not only created a great impact to unpaid work but also influencing paid

work and the level of influencing is increasing drastically and there is no sense of dropping

when first world countries had transferred their technology to third world countries. People

are getting used to the electronic gadgets and one might find him/herself feeling

uncomfortable when s/he is not using any of the electronic equipment such as mobile phone,

laptop, Iphone etc. One could hardly stay far from it now.

The increased application of technology, especially in globally operating companies,

can reduce the use of and dependence on labour. (International Labour Organization) For

example, cart is the only thing that we can use to transport goods from one place to another

during ancient times. But now, we have trucks that can do more loading at a higher speed and

at a lower cost as we only invest once on trucks compared to carting when we need much

more labour force to transfer the same amount of goods. Despite transportation, buffalos that

once used to be the main character in field were substituted by machines that are specifically

invented to use in field for crops. Human beings are no longer needed to take care of the

buffalos as machines are only needed to be serviced once in a while.

When technologies were widely used, there will be less and less privacy at the

working place. Informations will flow from one department to another department; from a

higher level personnel to a lower level employee via email, instant messagers etc. News are

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spreading without legs and mouth now. Everyone can have a copy of the information that had

been discussed through email and someone who got the carbon copy of the email can also

have a clear idea and progression on the particular discussed topic.

Conference meeting with colleagues in Malaysia when you are running an errand in

United States are possible now as what you need is just the connection and some basic

equipments to get yourself in the meeting. Due to the highly developed technologies, you no

longer have a clear guideline between work and leisure. Either waking up very early in the

morning or staying up very late at night is the only way that you can have a conference

meeting with different people in different region of time especially the time zone is so much

different in United States and Malaysia. Globalization is making us working more than we

used to be unconsciously.

In the era of globalization, all we want is the speed of work to be done. We deny the

fact that we are working 24/7 as we are used to it. We are taking the fact for granted as

everyone is practising this and it seems to be a normal routine for not only working class

people but some of them with a high status is facing such a problem too. We are on call 24

hours and either minor or major task that come to the decisioin making part will eventually

goes to a particular person neglectless s/he is on vacation or s/he is out of her/his working

table. Gadgets that can be used to contact her/him will be along with her/him as if the gadgets

had become her/his identification card.

For those who are self-employed and follow step-by-step on the current flow of the

globalization, they will gain benefit from it. Products can be ordered online and no trouble

will occurred as everything is clearly stated online. Products that they had purchased can be

placed online to be sold off and thus getting profit out from the selling. Many of them are

doing online business as margin gained is much higher as some of them might just be the

middleman online as they will be searching all the products online and put it on their personal

webpage to sell at a much higher price. Renting a shoplot to display all the products and
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hiring an employee to take care of the shop are unecessary and kind of wasting money as all

work can be done on a click on the keyboard.

There are more and more people gainning businness with the help of technologies due

to globalization. When everyone is falling on travel; airlines, travel agencies, hotellers and

whoever that can be linked to travel has emerged and conquering the cyber world. They are

giving online offers to those who does online booking as they need not need to fork out a

certain amount for their agents or recruting more members to their companies to entertain all

the manual bookings. We are acting as the unpaid workers in the industrial of paid workforce

due to globalization.

Travellers no longer sticking to the local agents when they are planning out on a

vacation. They can always seek agents from the respective places that they want to visit. The

agents from the particular places sometimes can have more knowledge than the local ones as

they are considered ‘local’ at their own territory and they will be more familiarised with the

places that travellers are going to visit. Travellers will get better knowledge before they

depart to that area which they know nothing about it. Travel agents who are looking for

customers from all over the world have make their company globalised. They no longer

staying in the nutshell waiting for customers but they are trying to prompt new customers and

generating new customer lines through the cyber world.

More and more multinational companies had developed because of globalization.

Working in a multinational companie with a well organised organisation chart, you will be

facing different type of people with different background. Cooperations between different

fellow in different countries are necessary most of the time as products produced will be

widely distributed to all regions. Norms and cultures from different countries need to be

familiarised and assimilated to reduce all unecessary arguments. Learning and adapting

others’ culture, norms and values to our own practises will make us more alert when we are

dealing with them.

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 Multinationals companies had exported jobs from developed countries to developing

countries through foreign investments and outward production in special economic zones

(International Labour Organization) like Malaysia, Indonesia and China. They will be giving

privileges on taxes and cost of labour is much lower in developing countries. Besides that,

materials can easily be gathered thus the transportation fees eliminate too and all these will

eventually make the cost of production lesser. In addition to that, through trade liberalization,

governments of developed countries such as United States and Canada encourage the

replacement of domestically produced goods with goods produced abroad (International

Labour Organization) due to cost wise.

The employment rate in developed countries will be dropping as there are more and

more factories and companies being shifted over to developing countries due to the new

enforced law and ways of how a capitalist will be thinking by getting the maximum return out

of their investment. However, the point when it seems to be disadvantage to the developed

nation that brought by globalization is actually an advantage to the developing countries as

the multinational companies are importing modals, technologies and the greatest assets which

takes time to produce-the professionals from their home country to the developing countries.

The knowledge and sense of technology of the locals will be leveled up.

Other than that, setting up new companies and new factories in developing countries

are like creating more and more job oppurtunities to the locals. The unemployment rate of

that country will drop and the people with a more stable income will have a more stable life

and their general needs will be satisfied. As their lower level needs are fulfilled, a higher

level of need will be addressed and this can motivate them on working harder and learning

more in their workplace and subsequently they will be more successful.

The number and proportion of full-time employees with contracts of indeterminate

duration has decreased constantly in developed countries since the mid-1980s. As labour

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markets have become more flexible, the forms of work have multiplied. Part-time workers

and workers with fixed-term contracts were turned into on-call and self-employed workers.

Globalization did not give birth to flexible forms of work but it contributes to their

development through the international network enterprise 1, which was created by

globalization. (International Labour Organization)

1
The network enterprise is a unit of business operations made up of different companies or segments of
companies, as well as of consultants and temporary workers attached to specific projects. Large companies rely
on vast networks of suppliers, whose quality and responsibility are critical for the success of the larger
company. In some cases, such as in Japan or the Republic of Korea, suppliers are generally loyal to one
company. In other cases, such as in the United States, Western Europe, "Taiwan, China", China or Hong Kong,
suppliers have alternative connections to different clients. The complexity of the new business system does not
stop there. Large companies, particularly multinational companies, constantly set up "strategic alliances" - that
is, agreements with other companies, sometimes competitors, in specific processes or product lines. These
strategic alliances are limited in space (they may be country-specific), time (they are valid for a certain period
only), and purpose (they may for example cover technology, but not markets - or vice versa). Since every major
company uses this strategy, and all constantly change their purpose, the actual behaviour of companies is
organized around a network of variable geometry.
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 V.CONCLUSION

Globalization has made a great impact on the world of work. It has influences both

unpaid and paid work in different angle and some of us might not be aware that all these

happened due to globalization.

In general, globalization has brought some advantages and some disadvantages to us.

But, undeniably so, it has upgraded most people’s life. There is no turning back, we are in the

era of globalization and no way that we can turn back to the era of dinosaur.

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