W. Graeme Donovan, WMST 245: Final Exam Study Guide Page 3

West Virginia University

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Women’s Studies Center

WMST 245: WOMEN IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE

9. women and their access to new technologies for agricultural growth

The 20th Century was the most remarkable in the history of agriculture. The century opened with the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws of genetics that revolutionized plant breeding, and with discoveries about plant nutrition on which a huge fertilizer industry came to be based. The four biggest scientific breakthroughs in agricultural research in the twentieth century were:

· new high-yielding varieties of crops (especially the cereals wheat, rice, and corn)

· understanding nutrient needs of crops and designing fertilizer programs to feed them

· designing better water management, with big investments in irrigation

· developing new techniques for protecting crops against pests and diseases

We looked at wheat, one of the key crops in the Green Revolution that swept through Asia from 1965 to 1990, and is still making waves in new regions of the world today. The new wheat varieties were developed by scientists who did repeated plant breeding until they found the right plants to release to farmers. Like iPods, the new wheats also had a set of innovations inside themselves that made them appealing to farmers:

· dwarf stature - shorter, stiffer stalks to hold up the bigger weight of grain;

· less susceptibility to lodging (falling down when it rained or was windy);

· higher harvest index - bigger ratio of grain to straw and leaves;

· photoperiod insensitivity (not responding so readily to day-length and cycles of light and darkness) - this extended the time during the year when it could be planted;

· great tillering ability - more grain-producing stalks per plant;

· grain dormancy in the head- the grain could get bigger and bigger without germinating while still in the head;

· short duration in the ground from sowing the seeds to harvest - this allowed double and triple cropping within the growing season;

· very responsive to nutrients (water and fertilizers);

· resistant to diseases, pests, and droughts.

The adoption of most innovations follows a classical sigmoid curve (axes X = time; Y = proportion of people adopting) that looked like the diagram below:

We talked about the general characteristics of adopters of innovations:

(a) Innovators and very early adopters: these people are venturesome, able to cope with a high degree of uncertainty and high risks, perhaps control financial resources that allow them to absorb losses if an innovation is unprofitable, are able to understand and apply complex technical knowledge, sometimes make mistakes, but get high payoffs;

(b) Early to middle adopters: these people serve as role models for other members of society, and are well integrated into their local social system; they are opinion leaders, respected by peers, and successful, willing to try out new ideas, but in a careful way;

(c) Early majority: these people interact frequently with peers, seldom hold positions of opinion leadership, and deliberate before adopting a new idea;

(d) Late majority: these people make up one-third of the members of a social system, they act when they are pressured by their peers or feel the push of economic necessity; they are skeptical and cautious, and will use new ideas only when the majority of those around them are already doing so;

(e) Late adopters and laggards: these people face the lowest costs and the lowest risks, they make the fewest mistakes, but also gain the lowest payoffs, they are not opinion leaders, they may be isolates whose point of reference is in the past, they may be suspicious of innovations and set in their ways, they may have very limited resources, and their innovation-decision process is long.

The main factors affecting adoption of new agricultural technologies are:

· Profitability of the new technologies

· Farmers’ financial resources

· Farmer’s attitudes to risk

· Farmer’s education and literacy

· How farmers find out about the new technologies, and how to use them

We also discussed why women often do not have access to new crop technologies:

• Women lack secure land tenure and titles to land (and therefore find it hard to borrow)

• Women lack access to finance (credit) and inputs (seeds, fertilizer, water, tools)

• Technologies may not be designed for women’s farming systems

• Women may be illiterate or have limited education, and can’t read newspapers, or labels

• Women may lack access to media of extension methods, such as radio

• Women may be overlooked or ignored by extension services

10. women as entrepreneurs & the importance of Laws

When farmers adopt innovations, and agriculture grows quickly, it stimulates the rest of the economy through backward, forward, and consumption linkages. Labor leaves farms to work in non-farm enterprises. These off-farm enterprises eventually grow bigger, get integrated into the national economy, and pull workers out of agriculture.

To support these kinds of economic developments, increased food production is extremely important. When people get higher incomes, they spend more money on food, both the staple foods like cereals and the higher valued foods like fruits and vegetables, dairy products and meat. Food is a very important “wage good.” This means that the price of food has a substantial effect on wage rates. This is because wage laborers, especially poorer ones, spend a large proportion of their income on food, so the price of food is important to them. If the price of food goes up too quickly, there is pressure to increase wages, and this chokes off growth in employment. Businesses will slow down on hiring labor if wage rises quickly. The new technology in agriculture helps farmers to make a profit from food production even if food prices are held down. This will create more jobs. And as people eat more, they are better nourished, and more productive as workers.

When laborers leave farming, they often get jobs first in the “informal” sector of the economy. The word “informal” here refers to relationships of the following three kinds:

· between enterprises and the state (most of the activity is unregulated and outside the law);

· between employers and workers (many of them family, with remuneration not wages but earnings, and the conditions of employment unregulated); and

· between buyers and sellers (with no restrictions on hours and conditions of trading, and no price regulation).

Informality refers to both production and distribution. The informal sector is where businesses congregate that are “below the government’s radar screen” – because they are either smaller than the limit of government regulation, or are evading regulations and taxes. Most of the informal sector is micro-enterprises (tiny businesses).

Women are key actors in this economic transition to the informal sector. The informal sector is where most women’s small-scale and micro-enterprises are located. Women’s participation in the informal sector is massive. Informal businesses appeal to women because they:

· are small

· rely on family labor or local resources

· need little capital

· are labor-intensive

· have few entry-barriers

· are highly competitive

· are unskilled, or get skills outside the formal educational system.

Wherever women are in the economy, whether in the informal or the formal sector, our goals for them are the same: equal rights, equal opportunity, and equal voice, for women and men.

There are many things governments must do to help, but some things more fundamental than others. One of the most fundamental is protection of the individual person from violence. We want this to apply equally to women and men. A second fundamental, one that is vital if we are to have working markets, is protection of property. We want women as well as men to have equal access to property. A third fundamental is protection of political rights. We want women and men to be equally able to express their voice in the privacy of the ballot box, as well as in the public arena.

11. globalization and Women

Self-sufficiency (people making everything they need from their own resources) is okay for survival, but it doesn’t get people out of poverty. To increase income and wealth, people must specialize. The way for an economy to modernize, diversify, and grow is for people to specialize, and take advantage of markets and trade.

Specializing is very important for women, who tend to be working at too many things. When a woman runs a farm with 15 different crops, it is her way of spreading her risks and surviving. To prosper she needs to specialize in a few crops and get good at growing them.

In the world as a whole, over the past four to five decades, there has been a tremendous increase in open-ness, a huge increase in trade, and consequent economic growth. The volume of trade has risen faster than the economic product of the world. This has been driven by:

· technological breakthroughs in transportation, by sea and air

· decreases in the real cost of energy

· satellite and wireless communication systems

· the computer revolution and the Internet

· a marked opening up of capital markets

· a shift in 1973 from fixed exchange rates among currencies to “floating” exchange rates that are determined by the market for currencies

· investments all over the world in human capital (education, health, nutrition, and skills)

· widespread investments in research and development

· increased general education [which allows the developing countries to adopt technologies from the industrial countries]

· economic integration, especially in the EU, and through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among Canada, the US, and Mexico

When the world is connected more and more closely, problems spread more quickly, and people’s lives are affected. There is a backlash against globalization because:

· It challenges traditional business practices, social structures, and cultural mores

· It disrupts and dislocates existing structures and may cause social and political instability

· Workers have less bargaining power and less job security

· It can cause widening income gaps as some people get rich and others are impoverished

· People are pushed by global cultural forces that may alienate them from their own culture

· Governments may give higher priority to laws affecting free trade than to laws protecting the environment – there is competition between societies with quite different values about how production takes place – different labor standards, environmental regulations, attitudes to corruption, repression of political rights

· People feel they have no say in the design of the system, and their lives are controlled by people who live elsewhere

· Sometimes it feels too hard to come up to the standards of other countries.

· People sometimes feel overwhelmed by the “brutality and destructiveness of capitalism,” and see no other way to get steadily rising standards of living except by embracing it

There is also a “backlash against the backlash” by people who don’t want to lose the benefits of globalization:

· People universally want a better life for themselves and their children

· Although the gap between rich and poor has been getting bigger, the poor have also been rising. There are many noisy protests against globalization, but we must also read the silences of those who are happy with it

· Globalization can create problems, but it can also create solutions and opportunities

· Globalization can help the poor find unique ways to get out of poverty – examples are opportunities for Internet commerce, and making financial transactions using cell ‘phones

· Globalization “can push down to the local level and to the weakest individuals more power, opportunities and resources to become shapers than ever before.”

· “The raw fact is that every successful example of economic development this past century—every case of a poor nation that worked its way up to a more or less decent, or at least dramatically better, standard of living—has taken place via globalization; that is, by producing for the world market rather than trying for self-sufficiency.” (Paul Krugman, Slate, Nov. 23, 1999)

· Globalization raises the costs of gender inequalities – companies can no longer discriminate against women if they want to compete with other countries that are benefitting from women’s labor. So competition helps women’s position.

In talking about globalization and women, let’s also remember the important work of the United Nations, through the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985), the four global conferences on women held in Mexico (1975), Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985), and Beijing (1995), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, adopted 1979, often called an International Bill of Rights for Women), and the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (adopted in 1993).

12. women in south & east asia, & the middle east

South Asia is a region of traditional antipathy to females – one writer called South Asia “the patriarch belt”. There is an enormous legacy of poverty and hunger in the region, but the region is improving rapidly, on the back of the Green Revolution in agriculture, which was enormously successful. The main religions are Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh. India is the second most populous country in the world and the world’s biggest democracy. It has a vigorous free Press. Countries in the region have had the following women leaders: India (Prime Minister Indira Gandhi), Pakistan (Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto), Bangladesh (Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia), Sri Lanka (Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike and President Chandrika Kumaratunga). Women’s labor force participation is second-lowest in South Asia. Of the almost 4 million women missing in the world in 2008, almost one-third were in South Asia. Of these, the biggest number was women dying in their reproductive years, followed by girls missing under 5, and girls missing at birth [Table 1, p. 15 WDR].

When we look at the cultural customs and norms of religion and society in South Asia, every one of them seems to conspire with the others to restrict and confine women’s lives and make it hard for them to escape from the restrictions. The main elements of this are:

· early marriage (sometimes before the onset of puberty)

· little choice in arranged marriages often arranged before the onset of puberty

· segregation in the workplace

· restriction of mobility.

East Asia is a region of deeply entrenched male preference, with China responsible for the largest gendercide in history. Foot binding and child brides were abolished by the revolution and modernization in China. The region has a rich, productive agriculture, with ample rainfall, large river systems and substantial irrigation and water control. It has experienced extremely rapid economic growth following the Green Revolution, a rising tide lifting all boats, and rapidly reducing poverty and hunger. China is the largest country in the world by population and the emerging biggest in terms of economic growth, development, and dealing with poverty. Countries in the region have had the following women leaders: the Philippines (Presidents Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo), and Indonesia (President Megawati Sukarnoputri). Women’s labor force participation is highest in East Asia. Of the almost 4 million women missing in the world in 2008, 37% were in East Asia, most of them in China. Of these, three quarters were girls missing at birth, followed by women in their reproductive years, and girls under 5. [Table 1, p. 15 WDR]