Women Workers and Globalization: Emergent Contradictions in India

Investigating the impact of globalization on women workers in India, this book demystifies the phenomenon of globalization, offering an overview of its prime drivers, processes and forces. Four sectoral studies of women workers are provided: two on factory women in garment exports and electronics; the third on home-based workers in a range of manufacturing processes and industries; and the fourth on middle class women working in Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES). Primary surveys were conducted amongst women workers in 2002-04, covering Delhi and its satellite townships of Noida and Gurgaon. In addition, by using secondary sources, the study links the experiences of these Delhi-based women workers with their counterparts in the same sectors in other parts of the country for a wider understanding of the impact of globalization. The analysis of garment exports, electronics and IT services, which are clearly linked to global production and service networks, brings out global sectoral trends and their ramifications. The study of home-based workers, on the other hand, has focused more on the policy framework towards this particular section and the changes in perspective that have accompanied the liberalization process. The advent of middle class women workers in the new forms of employment in the service sector has led to much euphoric celebration of globalization. IT-enabled service, the product of the digital age, is seen by ‘globalizers’ as being singularly important for employment generation as well as in terms of the potential to transform India from a still largely backward and overwhelmingly poor country into the ‘superpower’ league. The author suggests that new avenues of employment combine with new forms of cultural degradation, with technology itself becoming an instrument of closer and more oppressive systems of social control. The globalization decade in India has been marked by an extreme volatility in employment that is generalized across all sectors. The book discusses declining wages in the manufacturing sector, often far below subsistence, and points to the widening gap between male and female employment. An incisive guide to the impact of globalization on women’s work, the book will be invaluable for scholars, activists and indeed for policy makers.