Globalization and Women in India

JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA GENDER & DEVELOPMENT Globalization and Women in India Submitted by: Mohd Aamir Ali | MA Gender Studies 1st Sem Globalization and Women in India Concept of Globalization It is a process of goods, service, capital, currency, labor, technology, knowledge, culture, and people beyond geographical boundaries.   It requires freedom of movement across border of goods, services, capital, knowledge, and people. It also needs institutions/organizations for negotiating laws and controls across inter-national borders. Globalization means increased trade among nations, as well as increased travel, more world art, music, and literature, and new dimension of economic investment and activities. Thomas Larsson, a Swedish journalist, in his book The Race to the Top, states that: “Globalization is the process of world shrinkage, of distances getting shorter, things moving closer. It pertains to the increasing ease with which somebody on one side of the world can interact, to mutual benefit, with somebody on the other side of the world.” 1 Globalization and India Before 90s, India was under a financial crisis because of Gulf war that caused oil crisis in 70s & 90s, and because of our closed economy India was most probably a least preferred economy. In order to reform the situation and to boost our already wounded economy, it was the Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister of India who introduced Globalization in India by his LPG model (Liberalization, Privatization, Globalization) in 1991, under his New Economic Policy. This was the fundamental shift in the Indian economy, from Socialist Ideology to the era of Globalization. This was a huge drastic change in the whole framework of our country which was going to impact our development, our polices, our infrastructure, our sectors. It is totally unambiguous to say, this move benefitted us in many ways, but everything comes with a price. We have benefitted by it, revived our economy, boosted our capabilities but the increase in gap between the rich and poor, environment has suffered, failed to preserve old tradition, local industries suffered, lesser employment opportunity for unskilled labors, spread of diseases, and new difficulties for women. As this paper is about Women, we will focus on women issues, difficulties and benefits by globalization. In third world countries like India, where women suffer from serious discrimination, what affects the household will only worsen the position of women in respect socially and economically. Thus, the process of liberalization, privatization, and globalization (LPG) will revert the condition for women and for the poor people in general.2 1 2 Larsson, Thomas. (2001). The Race to the Top: The Real Story of Globalization Washington, DC: Cato Institute. p. 9 Krishna raj M. Globalisation and women in India. Dev Pract. 1999 Nov;9(5):587-92. doi: 10.1080/09614529952701. PMID: 12349429. Effect of Globalization on Women Over the ages, women in India have faced the problems such as patriarchy, social pressure, caste based discrimination, social restrictions, inadequate access to productive resources, poverty, insufficient facilities for advancement, powerlessness and exclusion etc. However, the new circumstances created by globalization are diverse, much like a two edged sword, benefit and drawbacks. Globalization encompasses all women in the country and covers almost all aspects of their life. In order to pass a broad statement, I could say, The Globalization has improved the conditions of women not only in India but globally, particularly the in the developing world. But as I have mentioned earlier, everything comes with a price, we have positive impacts or benefits from the Globalization and we also have negative impacts or drawbacks from the Globalization in women issues. India, a country where women are becoming more prominent, women are fighting prejudices. Women still faces huge pressure from the society, pressurized by traditional roles within families’ poses as much of a barrier to business women. Though women have made remarkable span in the corporate world in the last three decades, women from all income classes are still too often discouraged by family members from having careers that odds out social norms and values. Globalization is a multidimensional process comprising economic, political, cultural and ideological change. There are two schools of thought in analyzing the effects of globalization in women: One school is basically optimistic but with some up downs, that participation in global trade will improve the situation of all citizens, including women. The other school is not optimistic but critical and argues that economic globalization will further increase existing inequalities and will lead to new ones. Benefits: With globalization women got more options in employment sector, more employment opportunities means that there are more ways of breaking the inequality, such options makes women stronger with greater opportunities to take their work and skills elsewhere. They could achieve personal autonomy and independence. Change in the role: Globalization has knocked the door with questions to the traditional role of women in homemaking, farming, livestock, animal husbandry, handicrafts, handlooms etc. and resulted in a positive way and better ecosystem for women. Women have more jobs, become more active in places that were reserved for men, have played a more prominent role in society and not just restricted to the household. It has affected in a very positive and encouraging way in both the quantity and the quality of work/job available to the majority of women in India. A major challenge to the institution of patriarchy: As women take up jobs and achieve social mobility, they have also begun to stand up for their rights. Women claiming rights in social institutions: As nuclear families have become more common, it has become easier for women to claim their rights and ask for equality. Marrying out of the caste has become lesser taboo. Foreign inspirations: As countries come closer, and boundaries disappear in the globalized world, women in India are inspired by women the world over to fight for their rights. Like the waves of feminism ideology that allow women to acknowledge their claim and raise their consciousness. Increment on average wages of women: Globalization has increase average wages of women, with the introduction of import/export the emergence of export sectors resulted new employment opportunities and with better and higher wages than formal sectors. Employment opportunities have increased: With globalization, women’s employment opportunities have increased with the emergence of many working sector that are results of the LPG model. Women now have employment opportunities in export sectors, agriculture sectors, and most importantly the service sector where women are excelling with their capabilities. In some of the fastest growing service sectors, demand for female employment is increasing like in IT sector, industrial ex/im sector, airlines, railways, banks and finance companies. In developed countries due to expansion in the service sector, women get more of quality jobs than before. Reduction in gender inequalities: Multinational companies offer job without discriminating between men and women because they work in competitive environment and choose the best employees regardless of their gender. In current time the notion of gender neutrality in corporate sectors are increasing. It motivates more women to get the jobs. Globalization has opened up many ways for women in India. The greater access to information has operated through markets, formal institutions and informal institutions to lift some of the constraints to greater gender equality. Trade openness and the introduction of new information and communication technologies have created more jobs and stronger connections to markets for many women, increasing their access to economic opportunities. Greater access to information has allowed many to learn about life and mores in other parts, possibly affecting attitude and behaviors in women’s social and cultural life. Ease of Migration: Positive approach to economic and cultural migration facilitate women to be exposed to better prospects at the international level with a better life conditions or prosperous incomings. Drawbacks: Globalization generally improves economic growth and educational level, but may also kill employment in local industries, reducing employment opportunities for women who are working in local industries and firms. Apparently, women are in the highest volume of unpaid household work, which is like double burden on them. Globalization leads to feminization of the workforce: Multinational Corporation demands for cheaper and more flexible jobs have encouraged production using women with low wages. It confines them to the lowest-paid jobs. The negative consequences of globalization are best evidenced in these Multinational Companies of first world countries that have duty free production firms in third world countries like India, in which firms find abundant, cheap and easy labors, basically female. The profile of the women working in these firms are as follows: young, little knowledge, belonging to excluded population sectors(like people from outskirts or slum of the cities) and poor or no working experience. These kinds of companies are promoted and served by free trade agreements and government mostly backs them, Structural Adjustment Policies: Feminists who are opposing economic globalization view the impositions of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank as negative for women. These institutions require countries to adopt neoliberal policies as a condition to receive credits. Several cuts and trims in public sectors like public employment and social programs which are much frequently important in the SAPs (Structural Adjustment Policies) affect women in an especially and sometimes drastically negative manner. This is how a welfare state got crushed with it plan, same thing happened with India when we adopted the LGP model (Liberalization, Privatization, Globalization) in year1991, as an economic reform. Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, considers an essential aspect in order to encourage a fair development and reduce the inequalities fostered by globalization is to concentrate on the active role of women’s agency rather than only on women’s well-being, as a way to promote social change. Women are seen as “dynamic promoters of social transformations that can alter the lives of both women and men”. This is possible through women’s empowerment, one of the central and main issues in the process of development for many countries in the world today. Women’s empowerment doesn’t just include aspects like education, access to land/property and ownership of capitals, opportunities in the labour market or the nature of their employment contracts, but also family attitude and social attitude towards the economic activities that are performed by women, and the social or economic circumstances supporting those attitudes or prevents them from changing/appending. These issues have a direct bearing on women’s well-being but their reach goes beyond that. 3 According to Davids and Van Driel, the analytic frameworks of globalization do not address globalization by itself; it is rather taken for granted. This leads to the production and reproduction of a given orthodoxy, based on dichotomous thinking (local/cultural/traditional as female vs. global/economic/modern as male), which ignores the active role of women in the globalization process. They are defined simply as victims of the process or heroines of it, 3 Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Westminster, MD: Alfred A Knopf. when none of these depictions matches the complex reality women and men are facing in the globalization process.4 Social Impacts/Consequences: Women work two full time jobs. As women do work/job but their household responsibilities haven’t been gone low. For household responsibilities they paid nothing. Women double responsibilities – long working hours at work place along with attending household chores like cooking, baby care hurdles their performance and came in the way of success. Gender differences in the way: Access to productive inputs and agency have muted positive impacts for some and added to inequalities between men and women. Gender differences in education have limited women’s access to new employment opportunities. In agriculture, besides having a positive impact on productivity, education improves farmer’s capacity to adopt new methods of improving results. But because of lower education levels, female producers experience more constraints in accessing international markets than males. Gender responsibilities can prevent women from seizing new opportunities in the commercial sector, if no other household member can take on their duties. Property rights and limited access: Women’s weaker property rights and limited access to productive inputs also constrain their capacity to benefit from trade openness. Basic Gender norms in mobility aspects and women role in economic sphere can unevenly affect women’s access to the tech and stuffs. At home, men often control tech related items like TVs, radios, and mobile phones. At work, men think that a computer is something; women cannot learn to operate. If low government revenues are compensated through low social services, women are more directly affected than that of men. Many new jobs in growth sectors have low wages, insecure tenure and limited training or promotional prospects. These conditions may be exacerbated by the relaxation of labor standards as a means to attract investment. Some gender norm and essence of patriarchal norms hurdles the effect of women’s paid work, sometimes businessmen slice down the wages that women gets, and women sometimes have to give all her wages or part of it to her family, which increase gender inequalities. In agriculture, gender seriously impact on trade differs accordingly the type of agriculture & region. For example; in Asia and Latin America, women almost do not have any rights in the agriculture system. The farmer’s chance to enter the export sector leads to rift the conflicts in respect to the gender because the returns are always biased and discriminated against women. Some studies suggested that the gender impact of the expansion of industrial production and export is stronger in low income countries than in the medium income countries, where the expansion of trade caused the increase of women employment, but in the medium income countries women are employed and men still get the better paid jobs. Export opportunities are void in respect to women all over the world. In some countries, women can enter the international market like men, but it is noticed that in some countries women adapt slower than men to the export opportunities. There are several reasons responsible for women slower growth like restrictions on women for getting the necessary loans, inputs and access to marketing channels compared to men, which decreases their ability to move to large scale of production. As service sector is 4 Davids, T., & Van Driel, F. (2009). The unhappymarriage between gender and globalization.Third World Quarterly, 30(5), offering many benefits to women but the benefit is limited because very few employment opportunities are offered by service sector to poor uneducated women, compared to those offered by industrial and agricultural sector. Moreover women are employed for middle and lower managerial level, but women’s participation in the higher managerial level in the private sector is still limited. Deduction: No doubt, globalization offers women great opportunities but equally new and unique challenges. Gender inequality springs from many sources, and it is often difficult to determine which forms of inequality are being eliminated by effects of globalization and which are not. So globalization proves more bad than good for women. In several cases we do advocate that women are bread winner for family but society does not like this idea so they don’t accept this reality and tend to push their herd morality. The culture of India is like that most of people thought that if a woman chooses to be a working women, it will adversely affect their family and children. For Multinational Companies and Corporate industries, A good starting point would be carrying out a gender audit, which would allow for a diagnosis of the situation of the firm with regards to those elements determining gender equality within the framework. Some rectification or regulation could be done by these following measures effectively: 1. Employees selection and promotion. 2. Measures focused at reconciling work, family, social and personal life. 3. Sexual harassment in the workplace. 4. Safety regulations. 5. Training with gender perspective in the organization. 6. Non-sexist language and images in the organization. 7. Wage discrimination. In conclusion, Globalization has increased the number of low paid, part time and exploitative jobs for women. Increased prices due to open economy demand more ad hoc favor with changes from women. With increasing nuclear families, the older women’s life has become worsen, sometimes forced their last ages in old age homes and isolation in the family itself. The feminization of population has further elevated this rift of problems. Similarly, male migration from rural areas to urban cities has put the women under multiple burdens of home making, farming and work in rural sectors. At the same time, migration of women for economic reasons has led to increased exploitation including sexual exploitation and trafficking.