Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SAU300E Work and Life: SEMESTER II, 2009/2010
SAU300E Work and Life: SEMESTER II, 2009/2010
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
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
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.
Bank (Jayasuriya, 2008). It has provided a framework for the purpose of measuring
(1) Increase in values and volumes of trade in goods and services among countries.
Telecommunication Technologies.
(4) Spread of democracy and democratic institutions in the world along with the role of
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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
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;
which in the standpoint of sociology of work are the problems concerning ‘the production
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
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
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
treated by Castell as a pivotal factor in the dissemination of feminist ideas and the creation of
the nuclear family, women becoming slack-takers, the commodification of care, and the do-
it-yourself phenomenon.
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
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Gender relations
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
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)
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
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
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
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.
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.).
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
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
Do-It-Yourself phenomenon
Paid work now became an unpaid work. We are our own doctors, lawyers, teachers,
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
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
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,
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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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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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References
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http://actrav.itcilo.org/actravenglish/telearn/global/ilo/seura/mains.htm
Maslow, A. (n.d.). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Retrieved March 29, 2010, from Motivation
Theory: http://www.abraham-maslow.com/m_motivation/Hierarchy_of_Needs.asp
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http://www.naccrra.org/docs/policy/state-fact-sheet-2009.pdf.
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