The University of Hong Kong

Globalization and Gender Equality: Life Opportunities for Women

Chu Wai Yan Miranda

CCGL9022 Globalization in Question: Human and Economic Consequences

Dr. Nutsa Kobakhidze

May 15, 2020

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Chinese Confucian studies have been emphasizing that, husbands should govern “outside” while

wives govern “inside” house, and such a traditional belief is a sign of women inequality as it has

confined women inside house (Sekiguchi, 2010). Nevertheless, Miss Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-

ngor, who was elected as the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR in 2017, has not only

demonstrated women are no longer limited inside house, but also women status has increased to

a level that female can take a leading role in society. Looking beyond Chinese society, Western

society also started to paid attention to human rights and women empowerment after World War

II. Women’s rights in such aspects as education and poverty further became the highlight of the

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were the international development goals set up

by the United Nations in 2002 demonstrating a greater awareness among nations towards gender

equality issue (Alves & Steiner, 2016). Although the above situations do not mean that global

gender inequality has been completely eliminated, they are undoubtedly either steps towards

gender equality or signs of women empowerment, which refers to a change in women rights and

women status. It is thus expected that women nowadays can take up more life opportunities,

which is defined as “the sum total of opportunities offered to the individual by his society”

(Dahrendorf, 1981, p.28). This essay firstly makes use of capitalist theories and the world

systems theory to evaluate the effects of globalization on economic life opportunities for women,

it then discusses the possible reason for globalization not being a panacea to gender inequality

despite the positive effects mentioned.

The process of how women rights change varies in different regions, while it could actually be

traced back to 1867 in the Western society in the United Kingdom, that in Chinese society

appeared comparatively late at the end of 19th century. John Stuart Mill’s proposal letting women

vote on the same terms as men marked the start of rise in women’s rights. In spite of the proposal
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being rejected at that time, a range of acts including the Representation of People Act, the

Employment Protection Act, the Equal Pay Act etc. had been enacted after the proposal (Hanson

& Rani, 2019). They had gone to great lengths to prevent women from being exploited, as well

as to grant them with more power. All these can be reflected by the rights or benefits that women

received under the legislation through different acts, for instance, the voting right, the maternity

leave, the equal treatment etc. Change of women’s status and rights in China, however, occurred

in a completely different manner. Back to the late 19th century, there were a few intellectuals who

had been exposed to Western ideas would like to introduce the Western family and marriage

patterns to Chinese society and advocate gender equality because they believed the conventional

family structure and the lower status of women were the core reason for China’s

underdevelopment. Despite the failure of the May Fourth Feminist movement led by these few

intellectuals, more Chinese awoke to gender equality issue since then. In 1949, public awareness

further made the new government of People’s Republic to guarantee its commitment towards

equal right and freedom for men and women in the basic law (Li, 2000). It was only after

implementing the basic law then more legislation documents, such as the Marriage Law and the

Land Law are adopted to protect women rights, similar to the Western society.

It is believed that all these changes can be explained by the theories associated with

globalization. The first important theory would be capitalism since it is the major driving force

for economic globalization (McGrew, 1998). Capitalism could be defined as “an economic

system characterized by comprehensive private property, free-market pricing, and the absence of

coercion” (Sternberg, 2015, p.385). Effects of capitalism in the global interconnected world be

presented later. Another important concept would be the world systems theory. The theory is

established on a three-level hierarchy consisting of core, semi-periphery and periphery levels. It

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suggests that there is a world economic system, in which core countries benefit whilst some

semi-periphery and periphery countries are exploited (Skocpol, 1977). In order to understand

how these theories are tied to globalization and affect gender equality, the economic life chances

of women will be discussed below using the above theories.

To start with, economic globalization gives rise to international and regional organizations that

help increase women’s participation to the economy and even support the women-owned

enterprises. McGrew (1998) pointed out that states under globalization are so connected to a

level that the territorial boundaries have become spatial marks nowadays, despite their original

political and military significance. Meanwhile, more non-territorial forms of economic

organizations, such as the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the Organization for

Economic Co-operation and Development, have emerged. Consequently, the entire world is no

longer nation-centered, but it is under global governance, meaning individual states are in fact

monitored and governed by international organizations. Similarly, non-territorial organizations

have also appeared on the regional level under globalization, and they indeed do some good. The

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which has endeavored to increase women’s

economic opportunities, is a prime example that consists of 21 member countries in the Asia-

Pacific region. APEC has empowered woman by offering them education and training on how to

start and sustain a women-owned business as new entrants, increasing outreach to women on

Business Development Services, and linking medium or large corporations with women for

possible partnership and supplier opportunities. The Gender Responsive Economic Assistance

for the Transformation (GREAT) Women Project, implemented by APEC in the Philippines

from 2006 to 2013, has linked Canadian government and the Philippine Commission on Women

(PCW) together to further build capacities of the local government to financially support
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women’s daily life and micro enterprise projects, as well as to provide women entrepreneurs

with quality business development services (Global Affairs Canada, 2017; Lazo, 2015). In the

later part of the project, APEC also invited private sector partners to support women micro

entrepreneurs by giving advice on their product design and marketing strategies. In this project,

although APEC, non-governmental organizations, and outside government might have monitored

and guided the Philippines government in terms of budget and assistance for women economic

opportunities, women, especially those in microenterprises, may gain economic empowerment

with the support from APEC. This is supported by the statistics revealed by the Global Affairs

Canada (2017) that 13,780 women micro-entrepreneurs were assisted and benefited from the

project. Since organizations formed under globalization can reach more professionals or

capitalists globally, they tend to provide better human and financial resources than the local

governments, thus enabling women to access to the training, capital and assistance needed,

further increase their economic opportunities in the world.

More employment opportunities constitute another positive effect that globalization has on

women economic chances. According to McGrew (1998), a key development of globalization

lies in global capitalism. With free-market pricing being one of the focuses of capitalism,

pricing is not affected by the states. Instead, the pricing signals are generated freely from the

simple demand and supply model, which integrates the preferences of individual consumers in

the market and the cost for businesses to satisfy them. This idea echoes with another theory

known as neo-liberalism, which also emphasizes the freedom of trade and capital in the market.

The emergence of free markets has encouraged a keener competition among corporations, and

businesses work for better products with cheaper labor or other costs so as to meet customer

needs and maximize their profits. With an aim to lower the production costs and take advantage
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of the cheap labor, more corporations establish their factories, which often consist of labor-

intensive assembly line jobs, in countries with abundant unskilled labor, for instance, China and

Mexico. The increased demand for low-wage factory workers promotes female labor force

participation (Dalingwater, 2018; World Bank, 2011). Taking China as an example, more

manufacturing job opportunities has raised the female labor force participation rate from 50% in

1990 to 58% in 2010 (Duflo, 2012), demonstrating capitalism creates more employment

opportunities for women under globalization.

In spite of the increase in number of job opportunities for women, the quality of work available

for women has become a great concern. To achieve gender equality, apart from having a job

solely, women should have a quality work, which can be described as a work that offers

acceptable pay and development and progression, as men do. Thanks to globalization, neo-

liberalism on one hand encourages free market that promotes competition and raises

responsiveness of companies to consumer needs. On the other hand, it minimizes state

intervention and causes deregulation of industries. Unregulated competition may continue to

generate the positive effects as aforementioned, but it at the same time exerts downward pressure

on wages and employment treatment received by women, and the jobs opportunities for women

may eventually fail to meet the description of a quality work (Dalingwater, 2018). For example,

deregulation, meaning fewer labor regulations, has led to a relatively flexible labor market in the

UK. Such flexibility has resulted in more workers working on zero-hour or part-time contracts,

and many of them are women. It is found that British women tend to take on part-time jobs so

that they can spend quality time with their offspring. The tradeoff between working hours and

family time may sound reasonable to many women in the neo-liberal British society as the neo-

liberalism ideology suggests that individual effort and fewer working hours automatically equal
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to lower pay and prospect. Nevertheless, Dalingwater (2018) further listed out the drawbacks of

working part-time, including lower hourly earnings, fewer training and promotion opportunities,

more difficult access to unemployment insurance, lower job security and lower pension

entitlements. These negative effects, or treatments should not be part of the “working time or

family time trade”, but the results of deregulation of labor markets owing to neo-liberalism,

which is an ideology spread under globalization.

Moreover, although globalization provides employment opportunities to women regardless of

employment treatment, it does not necessarily mean that globalization helps to achieve better

gender equality because what globalization provides may not be what the women had expected.

To depict this, imagine a little boy who would like to eat chocolate while his parents do not

allow him to do so. Indeed, the boy does not mind using his own savings, yet, his parents refused

it but offered him with all kinds of treats, except chocolate. Though the boy has more options

such as candies and potato chips, but what his parents provide actually cannot meet his wants. If

chocolate is included in the choices provided by the parents, then the parents will be doing a

good deed by giving free chocolate to their son. In contrast, provided that chocolate is excluded,

no matter what snacks the parents offer, disallowing the boy to buy chocolate with his own

money will be a move that limiting the choices of the little boy. Similar scenario is found in

Africa. According to the world systems theory, countries are categorized, and the core ones are

benefited, meanwhile the periphery ones are exploited. Two African countries, Tanzania and

Nigeria, are the exploited countries under globalization. These two countries have their

traditional way of living. The women there do fishing and export fish to western countries to

earn a living. However, the newly established fish processing factories, which are owned by

multinational companies, deplete the water resources there, and they further compete another
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important resource, fish, with the locals. Women originally fishing there lose their indigenous

resources, and they cannot compete with the factories. Thus, many of them are forced to enter

the manufacturing industry and work in the factories (World Bank, 2011). The African women

are like the little boy mentioned earlier, despite the fact that more females get employed in this

case, and their wages may not be less than that as fisherwomen, their life options are in fact

eliminated, they have no alternatives but to change their way of living. This is not a good sign for

gender equality.

After looking at the impacts of globalization on the economic life opportunities, it can be

concluded that globalization helps provide more life opportunities to women, but it is not a

panacea to providing equal opportunities to the two genders, not to mention solving global

inequality, and traditional believes on genders would be a possible explanation. Dalingwater

(2018) mentioned that cultural norms may outweigh institutions. His claim can be supported by

the fact that British women themselves have silently agreed females should be the one dealing

with household matters, as this is the reason why they agree with the tradeoffs between family

time and working time. In 2012, a poll in the UK revealed that 9 in 10 people still expressed that,

not only mothers should be the major carer of offspring, but also the ideal division would be men

working full-time whilst women working part-time, showing that individuals in the UK are

deeply affected by this conventional idea. When the symptoms of gender inequality have

gradually become a social norm in different regions, it would be difficult to change the rooted

believes of individuals, and therefore gender inequality cannot be solved by globalization easily,

in spite of the efforts from international organizations and local governments advocating gender

equality.
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Economic life opportunities for women can be increased in the context of globalization as

international and regional organizations can provide external support to local governments, and

the free markets promoted by global capitalism may create more job opportunities for women.

More economic opportunities may represent a rise of women rights, and it may show that the

world has been more gender equal. Notwithstanding these, global capitalism has its negative

sides as companies may exploit women rights in terms of wage and other employment

treatments, and the changes and opportunities for some women caused by globalization may not

meet women’s expectations. To understand more how globalization affects the overall chances

of women, changes of life chances in more aspects, including the political and social aspect,

should be investigated. The overall changes for women life opportunities may better indicate

how the globe is doing towards gender equality. Looking at the women political opportunities

and measuring women representation in governments and institutions may further provide

insights on whether complete gender equality of a state or a region can be achieved, as women in

power may bring better changes on gender equality. However, to conclude, from study of how

women economic opportunities has changed, globalization has some positive influence on

achieving gender equality while such influence is still limited as some traditional values on

genders have been deeply rooted in society. Eliminating global gender inequality under

globalization is still a long-term topic.

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